The ten individuals who misplaced their lives in an enormous crowd surge on the Astroworld music pageant in Houston died from compression asphyxia, officers introduced Thursday.
Health workers with the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences in Houston needed to wait a number of weeks following the Nov. 5 live performance by rap celebrity Travis Scott for extra check outcomes earlier than making ultimate determinations on trigger and method of the deaths.
The ten individuals who died had been amongst 50,000 who attended the pageant and had been within the viewers when Scott’s live performance turned lethal.
The youngest sufferer was nine-year-old Ezra Blount. The others who died ranged in age from 14 to 27. Health workers stated contributing components in a single man’s loss of life had been cocaine, methamphetamine and ethanol, a type of alcohol.
Some 300 individuals had been injured and handled on the pageant web site and 25 had been taken to hospitals.
Dozens of lawsuits have been filed over accidents and deaths on the live performance, the place followers surged towards the stage throughout Scott’s live performance, squeezing individuals so tightly collectively that they may not breathe or transfer their arms.
Scott and the occasion organizers are the main target of a prison investigation by Houston police. Nobody has been charged. No timetable has been set for when the investigation can be accomplished.
Safety officers might have accomplished extra to forestall the chaos at Travis Scott’s Astroworld music pageant in Houston, the place eight individuals died, says Ontario teen Evan Pond. 8:45
Scott’s lawyer reached out to the households of the ten who died, providing to pay for his or her family members’ funeral prices. A number of households turned down the supply.
County Choose Lina Hidalgo — the highest elected official in Harris County, which incorporates Houston — had proposed a third-party probe of the planning and execution of the pageant based by Scott.
The Harris County administrator as a substitute will work with different metropolis and county entities to assessment safety, hearth and different security plans on the county-owned NRG Park, the place the pageant was held.
Different members of Harris County’s governing physique, often known as a commissioner’s court docket, had been involved Hidalgo’s investigation might result in authorized liabilities for the county.
Consultants in crowd security say an investigation by impartial outsiders into the tragedy might assist keep away from potential conflicts of curiosity and promote transparency.
A 56-page occasion operations plan for the Astroworld pageant detailed protocols for harmful situations together with an energetic shooter, bomb or terrorist threats and extreme climate. But it surely didn’t embody details about what to do within the occasion of a crowd surge.