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Astroworld medic says he found three unconscious people in just 10 minutes in Travis Scott crowd

Man describes how medical staff were overwhelmed by the number of festival-goers in need of life-saving medical attention during deadly crush at Astroworld

Rachel Sharp
Monday 08 November 2021 21:16 GMT
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Man who says he worked as an EMT at Astroworld describes finding multiple people unconscious
Man who says he worked as an EMT at Astroworld describes finding multiple people unconscious (TikTok/@remi.rich)
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A man who says he worked as a medic at the Astroworld Festival on Friday has revealed how he found three unconscious people in just 10 minutes in the crowd at Travis Scott’s show.

In a three-part TikTok video posted under the account name @remi.rich, the man described how he and his coworkers were overwhelmed by the number of festival-goers in need of life-saving medical attention on Friday night.

He told how he was first called to the stage to find a girl who fellow festival-goers told him had been unconscious for 10 minutes and was lying in the crowd without receiving any medical aid.

The girl, whose identity is not known, didn’t have a pulse and wasn’t breathing when he found her, he said.

Over the coming minutes, the medic said he encountered several other unconscious people in need of CPR, not to mention multiple people suffering less life-threatening injuries such as broken feet and dislocated shoulders.

The man went on to say he was speaking out after rumours had circulated online that the medical staff on site were ill-equipped to deal with the casualties.

He blasted these claims and accused the music fans of having “zero crowd etiquette” and being “50,000 self centred people”.

Eight people were killed at the Astroworld Festival on Friday night when the crowd surged during Mr Scott’s performance, causing fans to be crushed and trampled in the chaos.

Officials said 11 people went into cardiac arrest, while hundreds suffered other injuries. Their conditions are not yet known.

Despite the horrors unfolding in the crowd and a “mass casualty incident” being declared at 9.38pm, the show went on until Mr Scott concluded his performance at around 10.15pm.

“I was one of the EMTs that worked the Astroworld event,” the unidentified medic says in the TikTok video.

The man recalls how he and his partner were stationed at the entrance to the festival and received a call for backup close to the stage around 30 minutes into Mr Scott’s set.

Mr Scott took first took to the stage around 9pm.

The medic describes walking through the VIP section to the front of the crowd and attendees alerting him and his partner to an unconscious girl.

“A couple of people grabbed onto us and grabbed my shoulders and said ‘hey there’s a girl passed out here’,” he recalls.

“This girl was laying down and me and medic one are asking ‘what’s going on? What’s going on?’ One of the people says she’s been down for 10 minutes.”

He says he checked the girl’s vital signs and found she had no pulse and wasn’t breathing.

“I’m thinking how has no one done anything just let her lie on the ground for 10 minutes.

“She has no pulse, no breathing which means she could have not been breathing with no pulse the whole 10 minutes... no oxygen to her brain,” he says.

The man says he left his partner to administer CPR while he rushed to get a crash bag.

Then, he says that on his way back into the crowd, he found two other medics at separate points along the way also separated from their partners and performing CPR on unconscious festival-goers.

In a matter of minutes there was “three different EMT personnel performing CPR on unconscious patients,” he says.

“Three people in the space of 10 minutes that I could see,” he said, adding that that was only in a small area that he was in.

“There’s 50,000 people here ... there’s got to be more.”

The medic goes on to explain the challenges in drawing attention to the need for help, saying the music was “too loud” so repeated calls for backup weren’t being heard.

“Being in this crows is a life threat that is apparent,” he says he realised.

An ambulance makes its way through the crowd at Astroworld on Friday night
An ambulance makes its way through the crowd at Astroworld on Friday night (Reuters)

As well as the casualties in need of CPR, the medic says many other people reached out to him for help for other injuries.

“Along the way I had so many people reach out to me and grab me,” he says, saying people were complaining of broken feet, feeling faint and dislocated shoulders.

“I will try and come back to you but people are literally dead right now,” he says he had no choice but to tell them.

In the third part of the footage, he blasts criticism of the medical staff and says he believes the fault for the tragedy lies with the crowd.

He says there were around “150 [medical] personnel responsible for 50,000 highly irresponsible people”.

“Whose fault is it?” he asks. “My observation is the crowd.”

He adds: “So many people are going  down and getting injured and my observations are there was zero crowd etiquette at all... we did our best and we are being slandered.

“[There were] 50,000 self-centred people who only about themselves in one place.”

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