A father is in agony after his 9-year-old son had to be put into an induced coma after being trampled by the crowd at Travis Scott’s Astroworld festival last week.
“I’m not ready to lose my boy at all,” Treston Blount, dad to Ezra Blount, told reporters, per ABC 13 Houston. “We still got a bunch of living to do. ... That’s my boy.”
Ezra was one of many attendees injured in a crowd surge during Scott’s performance at the Houston festival on Nov. 5. The densely packed crowd had compressed toward the stage, with the crushing pressure of bodies on all sides leading to some people falling, passing out from lack of air and even being trampled. Nine people died.
Blount had lifted his son, who had been “stoked” about the show, onto his shoulders to keep him out of the crowd. But the intense crush ultimately knocked both of them to the ground.
Ezra’s grandfather, Bernon Blount, previously told reporters, “My son couldn’t breathe because of all the pressure that was being applied to him, and he passed out. And when he passed out, Ezra fell into the crowd.”
Treston Blount said when he regained consciousness, his son was no longer by his side. After a frantic search, he learned his son was already in the hospital in a medically induced coma after suffering internal organ damage and brain swelling.
The father was describing the ordeal at a press conference held by attorney Benjamin Crump, who is filing 98 civil suits related to what happened at Astroworld.
“Nobody should ever die from going to a concert,” Crump said. “In the future, safety must be paramount.”