Fort Worth man killed in Astroworld concert crush tried to save fiancee, brother says
A 27-year-old man who lived in Fort Worth was among eight people who died late Friday at a concert in Houston in an apparent compression of the crowd.
Danish Baig, whose funeral was on Sunday in Colleyville, was the oldest of the victims in the music festival crowd. He was killed as he tried to save his fiancee, Olivia Swingle, who had fallen and was in danger of being trampled by people at the concert pushing forward, his brother, Basil Baig, told ABC News.
“He was an innocent young soul who would always put others before him,” Basil Baig wrote in a statement. “He was a hard-working man who loved his family and took care of us. He was there in a heartbeat for anything. He always had a solution to everything.”
The crowd at the festival suddenly surged toward the stage during a performance by rapper Travis Scott, squeezing fans so tightly together that they could not breathe or move their arms, the Associated Press reported.
The pandemonium unfolded Friday at Astroworld, a sold-out, two-day event in NRG Park with an estimated 50,000 people in attendance, the AP reported. As a timer clicked down to the start of the performance, the crowd pushed forward.
The dead ranged in age from 14 to 27, and 13 people were at hospitals on Saturday, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said. He called the disaster “a tragedy on many different levels” and said it was too early to draw conclusions about what went wrong.
On Facebook, Basil Baig wrote of his love for his brother.
“I want you to know you passed the test of life. Your bravery and your courageousness will never go unheard. You are everything and the world to me,” Basil Baig wrote. “I cant believe you’re not with us no more. I love you with all my heart. I cant stop crying and being in pain.”
This story was originally published November 7, 2021 at 5:06 PM.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story erroneously reported the name of the city where Danish Baig lived.
