Eight people died Friday night and hundreds were injured during opening night of Travis Scott‘s Astroworld music festival.
The sold-out event, which had a lineup of multiple acts, took place at NRG Park in Houston, TX.
The scene became chaotic around 9:15 pm when Travis brought surprise special guest Drake onstage. According to Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña, a crowd of approximately 50,000 fans began to move toward the front of the stage.
“The crowd began to compress toward the front of the stage, and people began to panic,” Peña said.
More than 300 patients were treated at a field hospital. Houston Fire Department and Harris County medics transported 25 people to hospitals. CPR had to be performed on 11 of the victims.
According to Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, 13 victims are still hospitalized and five of those patients are under the age of 18.
Although names of the deceased victims haven’t been released yet, the mayor can confirm that their ages ranged from 14 to 27 years old. Authorities aren’t sure of the age of one victim yet.
HPD Executive Assistant Chief Larry Satterwhite was on-duty at the festival along with 367 police officers and 241 security officers. He gave his first-hand account during an early morning press conference.
“Once we started having the mass casualty incident, they were starting CPR on several people, and it happened all at once,” Satterwhite said. “It seemed like it happened over the course of just a few minutes. Suddenly, we had several people down on the ground experiencing some type of cardiac arrest or some type of medical episode.”
Medical transports were already at the park for the multi-day festival, but staff was quickly overwhelmed with injured people, authorities said.
It wasn’t yet clear what caused the deaths or injuries. Houston Police Chief Troy Finner shot down any rumors or early speculation floating around on social media.
While Finner joined others in cautioning the public from speculation, he did confirm reports that someone may have been injected with a needle.
“We do have a security guard, according to the medical staff that was out and treated him last night, that he was reaching over to restrain or grab a citizen, and he felt a prick on his neck,” Finner said.
The security guard lost consciousness and was treated with Narcan, a drug used to combat the effects of opioid overdoses, according to Finner, who added that investigators were still trying to locate the security officer involved.
A source connected to Astroworld tells TMZ, someone in the crowd went crazy and began injecting people with some sort of drug, which caused panic and then a surge. The source says authorities are trying to determine if those who went into cardiac arrest were the ones injected.
This report hasn’t been confirmed but according to TMZ, the source is a key person involved in the festival. The source said it appears to be a targeted attack.
“There were some individuals that were trampled, and we want to be respectful of that,” Finner said. “We just ask that you give us time to do a proper investigation.
Organizers with Astroworld Festival released the following statement early Saturday morning:
Rapper and Founder of Astroworld Festival, Travis Scott, also issued a statement.
Reports say that Kylie Jenner along with she and Travis’ daughter Stormi were also at the concert but they are safe. Sources say that Kylie’s sister Kendall Jenner and friends were also in attendance.
Disturbing videos of the incident has been surfacing on social media almost every hour. We will post a few here. Viewer’s Discretion advised.
Here’s a video of concert-goers trying to get the cameraman to stop the show.
After Travis was alerted that something was wrong with one of his fans, he asked for security to help.
This video shows an unconscious man being carried over the crowd while Travis continues to sing.
He received backlash on social media but in his defense, Travis has probably seen people pass out at concerts all the time. Unfortunately, this situation was much more serious.
There were signs of trouble before the show begin. A slew of fans knocked over barricades and rushed into the venue.
Authorities said a total of 25 people were arrested at the event — 23 were arrested for trespassing.
This was the first night of what was supposed to be a 3-day festival. The second night has already been canceled.
A reunification center was set up at a nearby hotel, so family members of concert-goers could reunite.
The investigation is still ongoing. The Astroworld camp and Live Nation promoters are in full cooperation with authorities.
Sending condolences to the families of all the victims.
