Astroworld: 9-Year-Old in Coma After Being Trampled at Travis Scott’s Music Festival

A 9-year-old boy is fighting for his life in the hospital after suffering severe injuries during the tragedy at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival. Ezra Blount was at NRG Park in Houston, Texas Friday night with his father when he was reportedly trampled during the crowd surge that led to a “mass casualty event” resulting in eight deaths. Now, the 9-year-old is in a medically-induced coma at Texas Children’s Hospital.

Ezra traveled to Houston’s NRG Park with his father, Treston Blount, to see “his favorite artist,” who took the stage just after 9 p.m. local time. When Scott took the stage, Blount had his son “on his shoulder,” Ezra’s grandfather, Bernon Blount, told CNN. As Scott’s performance continued, the crowd pushed toward the stage, and Blount “could not breathe so he ended up passing out because of all the pressure that was being applied to his body. And when he passed out, Ezra fell off his shoulder and fell into the crowd.”

Bernon, who said his grandson was taken to the hospital as a John Doe, told the outlet that Ezra went into cardiac arrest during the crowd surge, “which damaged his heart.” He also said the boy “has damage to the liver, his lungs … and on top of that, he has swelling on his brain.” Doctors have placed Ezra in a medically-induced coma in an attempt to overcome trauma to his brain, according to his family. His family has since created a GoFundMe page to help cover medical expenses “and anything that comes along with this tragedy.” Bernon said his family is “devastated because this was supposed to be a father-son outing for them to bond and it has turned into something horrible and tragic” and there “needs to be accountability, not just from the artist or the event planners, but also from the city of Houston.”

Ezra was the youngest of the more than two dozen people transported to the hospital following the incident. More than 300 others were seen at a field hospital at the stadium. Jacob Jurinek, 21; John Hilgert, 14; Brianna Rodriguez, 16; Franco Patiño, 21; Axel Acosta, 21; Rudy Peña, 23; Madison Dubiski, 23; and Danish Baig, 27, have been identified as the eight people who lost their lives in the tragedy, which is currently being investigated.

Several lawsuits have already been filed following the Friday event, many claiming negligence. Ezra’s family has since retained attorneys in Ben Crump of Ben Crump Law and Alex and Bob Hilliard of Hilliard Martinez Gonzalez. In a statement, the attorneys said, “the suffering that this family is going through is immeasurable. This little boy had his whole life ahead of him — a life that is currently hanging in the balance because of the reckless mismanagement that ensued at the Astroworld Festival.”