NORTHGLENN, Colo. — What was supposed to be a fun day between a Northglenn father and his 9-year-old son turned into a scary memory after witnessing the deadly crowd surge at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival in Houston, Texas, over the weekend.
Jesse Dahl said he brought his son to the concert because it was advertised as an event for all ages. They spent the day enjoying the carnival where they rode the Ferris wheel, enjoyed the roller coaster and played ring toss.
Dahl said he and his son headed over to the concert area around 7 p.m. to try to find a good spot, at first ending up at the very front.
“I was looking around and there's just barricades everywhere, and I told my son, ‘We don't want to stand here,’ Dahl said. “If there's too many people in here, you know, we're not going to be able to get out.”
Dahl ended up in a section elevated above the main crowd with a bird’s eye view. At first, he said the crowd formed and was initially just standing. But he said as soon as Travis Scott came out, the crowd changed.
“The crowd just went crazy,” Dahl said. “Everybody's jumping and throwing shoes — I don't know how many shoes I saw getting thrown — and looking back on it, it's probably not people having fun just throwing their shoes. I think they were like trapped or something trying to get out.”
He said when Drake appeared on stage, the crowd reaction became even more intense. At one point, he saw a man lying on the ground with his shirt ripped open and he was blue in the face. He said other concertgoers were giving him chest compressions.
Dahl said he tried to get one of the men operating cameras in the area he was standing in to call for help. He said he had to ask him several times before he started talking into his walkie talkie.
Dahl didn’t realize until after the concert that what happened to the man he saw on the ground was not an isolated incident. In total, eight people died and hundreds of others were injured.
Dahl said he won’t let the situation deter him from taking his son to events, but he said he plans to do more research into the artists beforehand.
“I'll still take them to events because tragedies and the unexpected are just a part of life nowadays,” Dahl said. “You have to just keep going on with life, but don't put yourself in a situation that is avoidable.”