9-year-old dies from Astroworld injuries
HOUSTON — A 9-year-old Dallas boy has become the youngest person to die from injuries sustained during a crowd surge at the Astroworld music festival in Houston.
Ezra Blount of Dallas died Sunday at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, family attorney Ben Crump said.
Ezra was placed in a medically induced coma after suffering serious injuries in the Nov. 5 crush of fans during a performance by the festival’s headliner, rapper Travis Scott.
He is the 10th person who attended the festival to die.
“The Blount family tonight is grieving the incomprehensible loss of their precious young son,” Crump said in a news release Sunday night. “This should not have been the outcome of taking their son to a concert, what should have been a joyful celebration.”
Treston Blount, Ezra’s father, described what happened Nov. 5 in a post on a GoFundMe page that he set up to help defray Ezra’s medical expenses. He said Ezra was sitting on his shoulders when a crowd surge crushed them. The father lost consciousness and when he came to, Ezra was missing, Blount said. A frantic search ensued until Ezra was
eventually found at the hospital, severely injured.
The child incurred severe damage to his brain, kidney, and liver after being “kicked, stepped on, and trampled, and nearly crushed to death,” according to a lawsuit his family has filed against Scott and the event’s organizer, Live Nation. The Blount family is seeking at least $1 million in damages.
On Saturday, over 250 people gathered in Houston for the funeral of 16-year-old Brianna Rodriguez, who died from the surge at Astroworld, the Houston Chronicle reported. Her white casket was surrounded by flowers and balloons in pink and white — her favorite colors.
“Every time she walked into a room, she would light up the room,” said her friend,
Ariah Herrera, 16, as she cried. “She cared for everybody. She was a friend to everybody.”
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston delivered a eulogy and presented Rodriguez’s parents with an American flag that flew over Congress and a congressional resolution that recognized Rodriguez’s life.