The death toll from Travis Scott’s annual Astroworld Festival has risen to nine. TMZ reports that 22-year-old Bharti Shahani has died. Shahani, who was a senior at Texas A&M University, died Thursday, Nov. 11 due to injuries sustained at the event the previous Friday night. Reports of Shahani being declared brain dead began floating online before her family attorney told TMZ the news of her death.
Shahani attended Astroworld with her sister and cousin. She got separated from them during a crowd surge. Bharti reportedly suffered several heart attacks after the crowd crush. She was rushed to a local hospital for further evaluation and treatment.
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The victim’s family attorney held a press conference to discuss the tragedy. “There’s a video people have seen of a young lady falling from a gurney as they were trying to get her out of there and evacuate her. That was Bharti Shahani,” one spokesperson for the family said, who appears to have been the cousin Shahani attended the event with.
Shahani’s family also expressed their grief and outrage during the press conference. “The word I see most people using is actually tragedy but I think the connotation behind the word tragedy kind of implies that this was something very much unavoidable,” one family member said. “So, I think that word is wrong. I think the word that should be used is the word atrocity. This was 100% avoidable. This was an act of pure brutality.”
He then goes on to blame all those involved in the event for the unfortunate outcome, adding:”If the producers, directors, organizers, and Live Nation had done their job, if they had hired properly vetted security and trained medics, if they hadn’t grossly oversold the event, and then let hundreds and maybe thousands of people sneak in, if they hadn’t packed us into all three sides of barricades…they suffocated us. They did this to Bharti.”
Survivors of the surge are continuing to speak out as the investigation is ongoing. Bryan Espinoza, who attended the concert with his brother Jonathan, told CNN he’s had trouble sleeping since the whole ordeal. “I saw people screaming in front of my face, just trying to fight for their lives, basically. Everyone’s life was in danger and I just saw people passed out, bodies on the floor, just a lot of stuff you don’t see on a daily basis,” Espinoza said. “At one point I thought I wasn’t going to make it.”
Scott spoke out on Instagram the day after the tragedy, saying he was devastated and unaware of the severity of the sitauion. He promises he’s cooperating with investigators in the matter. Several lawsuits, which list Scott, have been filed by victims and their families.
