SUSANNA Reid became emotional as she told how her “heart breaks” for the eight victims who died in the crowd at Travis Scott’s Astroworld show.
The mum of three spoke to a concertgoer on Good Morning Britain today who recalled the moment his girlfriend was screaming for help while he was being crushed.
Ryan Kushner said that other fans refused to come to his aid as he recalled the terrifying minutes he “couldn’t breathe”.
He told Susanna and Martin Lewis: “It was fine until Travis’ set. Then, pretty much of nowhere, everything sucked in together and I couldn’t breathe.”
“It came out of nowhere, just extreme pushing. I was getting pushed from the back… I was getting my back crushed and people weren’t moving from the front.
“People weren’t helping me. My girlfriend was screaming, ‘He can’t breathe!’ This kid, his words quote-for-quote were ‘not my problem’.”
Ryan said he was eventually able to free himself from the crush but that people were “disrespecting” him for trying to push his way out of the crowd.
He said he didn’t know “how” Travis Scott “couldn’t hear people screaming”.
Afterwards, Susanna said: “Well I think that out of anybody there, the person who has the influence to enable people to get out… we just just don’t know how much Travis Scott knew about what was happening.
“But when you see those two people get on stage and say, ‘Stop the show’, that breaks my heart’ because those people in the concert were trying to get them to call it off.
“And if Travis Scott at that point had said, ‘Guys, stop, we need to back up a little bit, enable people to get out, enable paramedics to get through’ that would have had a massive effect on what happened.”
Martin added: “That’s what the fire services have said there. There was only one person in a position to make it stop or to at least try and mitigate what was going on and that was Travis Scott.”
Houston police and fire department investigators have said they would review video taken by concert promoter Live Nation, as well as dozens of clips from people at the show that were widely shared on social media.
Investigators also planned to speak with Live Nation representatives, Travis and concertgoers.
Live Nation said in a statement Monday that it has provided authorities with all footage from surveillance cameras at the festival, and that it had paused removing equipment at the request of investigators who were walking the grounds.
The promoter said full refunds would be offered to all attendees.
Travis, who founded the Astroworld festival, said he would cover funeral costs for the victims.
The dead were between the ages of 14 and 27 and included high school students, an aspiring Border Patrol agent and a computer science student.
Over 300 people were treated at a field hospital on site and at least 13 others were hospitalised.
