BARRIE -- Madeline Eskins was among those caught in the crowd at the Astroworld Music Festival in Houston, Texas on Friday, which left eight people dead and dozens injured. She said what took place at the venue was “absolutely horrific.”
Eskins told ۴ý Channel that she and her boyfriend arrived at the stage where rapper Travis Scott was to perform around 6 p.m. local time, approximately two hours before the rapper was scheduled to perform.
She said, as they waited for Scott, people “kept getting more packed,” and were “pushing more [and] shoving more.”
“[Scott] started a countdown on the main screen from 30 minutes, and as that got closer to zero, people started really shoving and pushing and right before he performed I looked at my boyfriend, I said ‘I have to get out of here’ because people were compressing my chest so much from front, back [and] both sides that I couldn’t breathe.”
Eskins said as soon as Scott started playing, it got “10 times worse.”
“I didn’t think that it could, but it did, and I passed out,” she said. “From what my boyfriend said [he] and another Good Samaritan that was in the crowd lifted my unconscious body and basically crowd-surfed me to the fence where – I’m assuming it was a security guard – pulled me over.”
Eskins said she was “in and out” of consciousness, and was sitting along a walkway sectioned off for photographers.
“I passed out again and then I woke up again and I was in the VIP area right behind the general admission in a chair with a water bottle in my lap,” she said. “And they were leaving me to pull other people out.”
Eskins said she saw others who were unconscious.
“When I finally regain my sense, I see a security guard frantically carrying a young man,” she recalled. “And I said ‘stop, have you checked the pulse on this guy?’ And he’s like ‘I don’t know how to do that.’”
Eskins said she identified herself as an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) nurse, and asked to look at the man, adding that they were “just dropping them off, and going and getting more.”
She said the man did not have a pulse, and his pupils were not reacting to her light test.
“I said ‘you need to get this guy to the medic tent, do not drop him here – go.’”
According to Eskins, another guard brought her to the front of the VIP area, where three people were “sprawled out” and receiving chest compressions and CPR.
Eskins said she began helping, saying she “did her best,” adding that she wasn’t sure how much experience the medics at the venue had.
“I was seeing a little bit of improper CPR,” she claimed.
Asked whether the concert should have been stopped, Eskins said that Scott did pause while performing after noticing a man in the crowd had passed out.
“He acknowledged that people needed help, and then continued,” she said.
Eskins said they were “screaming up at staff,” including those controlling the lights to “please stop -- people are dying.
She said part of her job as an ICU nurse is dealing with death, however Eskins said, “nothing could have prepared me for what I saw” at the concert.
“It was absolutely horrific,” she said.
At least two investigations and one civil lawsuit have been launched in regards to the concert.
On Saturday, Scott issued a , saying he is “devastated” by what took place.
“My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at Astroworld Festival,” the statement read.
Scott said he is “committed to working together with the Houston community to heal and support the families in need.”
Eskins said she is grateful that she was able to get out of the crowd.
“I feel like God definitely got me out of there so I could help others,” she said. “I really hope that at least one of the people I was performing CPR on or helping out with, you know, made it.”
-With a file from Reuters
