Receiving Improper Medical Care at the Astroworld Festival

Crushing Injuries Can be Deadly to a Victim for Several Reasons

People who are victims of crushing injuries can die from those injuries, if they are not treated carefully and promptly. A crushing injury is an injury that occurs when there is pressure from a heavy object that crushes down onto the person’s body. This crushing type of injury at the Astroworld Festival was when the crowd rushed towards the stage, and crushed the people standing in the front of the crowd. When people are injured with crushing injuries, they experience “the life sucked out of them,” or the squeezing of the body between other objects (in this case other bodies). People who are in crushing accidents experience shock, and a prolonged period of intense and dangerous compression to their limbs, trunk and pelvis, as well as their head.

Why Does a Victim’s Body Respond So Violently to a Crushing Injury?

In the middle of a crush injury, the victim’s body has a severe and deadly reaction. On the impact of being crushed, the victim of a crush injury will sustain damage to muscle groups where swelling and bleeding will begin. There will be swelling as the compressive forces literally force blood to odd areas of the body, where the body cannot sustain that pressure for long. The compression to the body during the crushing event will lead to the vascular compromise of the victim. At that point, the victim’s blood vessels, nerves and muscle cells can collapse, leaving the body without a steady and necessary supply of oxygen and the nutrients to live.

In this case, the muscle cells will die in just a few hours, and there may be no way for the body to then get the blood necessary to sustain the person’s life (including the heart, lungs, brain and other vital organs). If blood does not reach the person’s brain properly as a result of a crushing injury, the person will die from lack of blood to the brain. Another result of a crushing injury anywhere on the body, can result in permanent and severe brain injuries were the person to live. The brain and other organs cannot survive without a constant flow of blood to these arteries, and this will be difficult for the victim’s body to sustain.

Major Problems for the Victim Will Occur, If the Crushing Injury Is Not Managed Properly

All of the above scenarios are occurring to the crush victim’s body, and this is noted as happening immediately as the crushing injury is experienced, and just afterwards. Unfortunately, these crushing injuries are deadly and often fatal, because the effects of the crushing injury keep going until proper and consistent medical attention is achieved. A person can be in a crushing injury, and will not stabilize until that individual reaches the hospital, in most cases. Therefore, a victim crushed at the Astroworld Festival will not have a chance to properly recover, if the first aid given at the scene in the field is performed properly.

Crushing injuries will release deadly toxins to the person’s body. The muscles of the body can only withstand up to 4 hours without a proper blood flow before major cell death will occur in that person’s body. The toxins released from crushed tissue can lead into the body for up to 60 hours after a crushing injury. This means that even if the person is released to a hospital quickly, that individual may still have an issue with the crush injury, and can die several days later as a result of this type of crushing experience.

Event Managers Need to Be Specially Trained to Deal with Crush Injuries

People who are in charge of managing live concert events such as at the Astroworld Festival need to be specially trained to manage crush injuries and crush syndrome on concert attendees. For example, a tourniquet is NEVER used for the first aid management of a victim with a crush injury. People with crush injuries often go into cardiac arrest, and need to be cared for properly to preserve their lives. It is the responsibility of the people who own, run, and produce the show at the Astroworld Festival to know how to train emergency staff, employees and venue personnel responsible for crowd management, on the proper protocols to save the life of a victim of a crush injury.

Crush Injuries at Live Event Concerts Are Not Unusual in the Least!

It is not unusual at all that a person at a live concert event will be crushed, if the crowd gets out of hand at any time and rushes the stage. There always needs to be emergency exits near the front of a stage, that are kept clear during the entirety of the concert. This will allow any rushing of the stage to push people forward, that will allow people to then spread out to the right and left sides of the stage during crushing and rushing in that area. The sides of a stage cannot be blocked, specifically to handle a crowd rushing the stage.

It is true that people will always be injured in a crush injury, and people at a live concert event will always have the opportunity to rush forward up to the stage. These events need to be constantly monitored, to prevent deadly crushing injuries from happening. If they are not monitored, then there will be serious injuries and deaths at events such as at the Astroworld Festival, that will occur as a result of the negligence of crowd management for that concert.

Emergency Services at the Astroworld Festival and Emergency Protocols

The employees at the Astroworld Festival who were tasked with helping manage the crowd needed to know how to be first responders to anyone injured at the event. There needed to be in place several safety equipment to help people who were injured, including:

• Emergency first aid kits
• First aid attendants
• Personal protective equipment
• Surgical gloves and masks
• Respirators
• Eye protection
• First aid kits
• Defibrillators
• Emergency care kits
• Emergency splints and braces

The people running the show and responsible for crowd management at the Astroworld Festival were tasked with checking for adequate safety procedures to be in place, to manage any emergency injuries at the event. If these tasks were not in place, then it would be difficult to properly manage anyone who was injured at the event. First aid that is poorly performed can actually do more harm than good.

Call for a Free Consultation

If you have any questions regarding your claim for having received improper medical care at the Astroworld Festival, then you need to give us a call for a free consultation. We are here to discuss and review your case and losses, especially related to your medical care, improperly received medical care, and any resulting injuries from the crowd, the venue or from the care of the medical personnel who assisted you.

We are here with compassionate understanding that this may be a confusing and difficult time of healing for you, as you recover from your injuries related to the tragedy at the Astroworld Festival. Just give us a call today, we are here for you. We can answer any questions that you may have regarding any personal injuries that you sustained at the Astroworld Festival.

Other Pages on Our Website Related to This Topic
Hurt at the Astroworld Festival in a Slip and Fall with Other Non-Crowd Related Traumas
Can I Sue for Personal Injuries Sustained at the Astroworld Festival?