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9-Year-Old Victim, Ezra Blount, Is 10th Person To Die From Astroworld Festival Crowd Surge
What was meant to be a father-son outing ended in tragedy when Ezra Blount was one of the victims who died when throngs of people rushed to the stage to see Travis Scott perform.
Ezra Blount has become the youngest victim to die as a result of the crowd surge at the Astroworld Festival in Houston earlier this month, bringing the total death toll to 10.
Blount, 9, died Sunday at the Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston from injuries he suffered during the Nov. 5 music festival, according to The Associated Press.
“The Blount family tonight is grieving the incomprehensible loss of their precious young son,” the family’s attorney Benjamin Crump said in a statement Sunday night. “This should not have been the outcome of taking their son to a concert, what should have been a joyful celebration. Ezra’s death is absolutely heartbreaking.”
Ezra was a fan of headliner Travis Scott and was eager to see the rapper in concert with his father, Treston Blount.
“He was so stoked,” Treston told local station KTRK. “He was ready to go.”
Treston told the news outlet he and his son tried to stay toward the back of the crowd because they believed it would be calmer and Treston placed the 9-year-old on his shoulders just as the show was about the begin.
When Scott took the stage, people began to push the crowd forward, taking the father and son with them. Treston lost consciousness in the melee and his family believes Ezra was trampled by concert goers.
When Treston regained consciousness, he couldn’t find his son anywhere and checked with concert medical tents before filing a police report.
Treston was eventually contacted by a police officer, who provided him with a photo of a previously unidentified young boy in the hospital. It turned out to be Ezra.
“The picture they sent me was him in the hospital. Just to see him in that condition ... I wasn’t ready,” Treston told KTRK through tears.
Ezra had suffered damage to his brain, kidney and liver.
His family believes he received the injuries after being “kicked, stepped on, and trampled, and nearly crushed to death,” according to a lawsuit, obtained by The Associated Press, filed on behalf of the family against Scott, the event’s organizer, Live Nation Entertainment, Cactus Jack Records and Scoremore Management.
Ezra had been placed in a medically induced coma before his death, the family said.
The lawsuit is just one of the numerous suits filed against Scott and the event’s organizers after 10 people died as a result of the surging crowd.
Crump called the 9-year-old’s injuries “so very preventable” and said he believes the deaths were a result of a lack of crowd control and safety provisions.
“We want the message to be loud and clear to Live Nation and everybody involved,” he said last week, according to KTRK. “We expect you to do better in the future, and we expect you to do right by everybody who is injured physically or psychologically at the Astroworld Festival.”
After news of his death, Crump said in a statement that his firm is “committed to seeking answers and justice for the Blount family.”
