Dallas family starts GoFundMe for 9-year-old boy injured at Astroworld, in induced coma
A 9-year-old boy from Dallas is in a medically induced coma after being trampled by the crowd while attending the Astroworld music festival in Houston last weekend, his family said.
Treston Blount, and his 9-year-old son Ezra, attended the annual music festival Friday, which was declared a mass casualty event after eight attendees died, others suffered from cardiac arrest and attendees recounted seeing people trampled over, stomped on and passing out. The festival’s host, rapper Travis Scott, continued to perform for nearly 40 minutes after officials declared the concert a mass casualty event, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Blount, through a GoFundMe campaign, wrote that he had his son on his shoulders when the crowd surged forward and compressed and he “began to be crushed until I couldn’t breathe.”
“I passed out and I woke up and my son was gone, and due to his severe injuries, which are swelling in the back of brain, damage and trauma to nearly all organs, we are certain that he was trampled,” Blount wrote. “[He] is still in an induced coma. We are thankful for his life and thankful for all the prayers and positivity. We are asking for donations for his medical bills and anything that comes along with this tragedy.”
The GoFundMe had raised over $14,000 as of Tuesday morning.
Family members said that the father and son loved Travis Scott and “the concert was meant to be an exciting time for them to bond,” CBS reported.
The family has hired attorneys Ben Crump, Alex Hilliard and Bob Hilliard to pursue a lawsuit alleging “negligence in a great number of aspects including crowd control, failure to provide proper medical attention, hiring, training, supervision and retention,” a release from Crump read.
“We plan to hold everyone who had a hand in this festival accountable for the horrifying and traumatic injuries that this helpless child sustained,” Alex Hilliard said. “Organizers have a duty and responsibility to protect their patrons and control the crowd when it gets out of control. It is outrageous that it took as long as it did to stop the show, as many of these deaths and injuries could have been prevented or mitigated.”
The victims who died during the performance ranged from a 14-year-old boy to a 27-year-old woman from Houston.
A 27-year-old Fort Worth man, Danish Baig, was killed as he tried to save his fiancee, Olivia Swingle, who had fallen and was in danger of being trampled.
