Medical staff at Travis Scott's Astroworld have come under fire after the festival's ninth victim was revealed to be the woman seen being dropped on her head in a viral video from the concert.
Bharti Shahani, a 22-year-old Texas A&M student, died on Wednesday, November 10, following injuries she sustained during the deadly stampede at the festival, The Washington Post reports.
Attorney James Lassiter has since spoken out about a widely-circulated video, obtained by TMZ, which showed a young festivalgoer on a stretcher being dropped on her head while she was being evacuated by medics at the festival.
Lassiter confirmed that Shahani was the person on the stretcher.
Per The Independent, he said: "There have been a lot of questions, and I think it's common knowledge, but there was a video going around that most people have seen of a young lady falling from a gurney as they were trying to get her out there - evacuate her. That was Bharti Shahani."
In the horrific smartphone footage, medics are seen trying to lift the unconscious concertgoer over a metal barrier when they suddenly lose grip, causing her to fall to the ground.
Max Morbidelli, a former firefighter who has medical training, told the Los Angeles Times it was "an act of pure negligence" and "the worst thing that can happen to anyone in the emergency medical field".
Madeline Eskins, an ICU nurse who happened to be one of the festivalgoers, shared in an Instagram post how "disturbed" she was by the inexperience the medics seemed to have with CPR.
Eskins wrote: "I don't think I've ever been more disturbed. Some of these medical staff had little to no experience with CPR. Didn't know how to check a pulse, carotid, or femoral.
"EDIT LET ME STATE THESE MEDICS ARE NOT TO BLAME, but a few of them did not have experience in situations with people losing pulses."
Eskins went on to claim that she saw some staff administering CPR to people who still had a pulse.
She continued: "Compressions were being done without a pulse check so ppl who had a pulse were getting CPR, but meanwhile there was not enough people to rotate out doing compressions on individuals that were actually pulseless.
"The medical staff didn’t have the tools to do their jobs. and despite the crowd around us trying to get someone to stop the concert they just kept going. even though Travis acknowledged that someone in the crowd needed an ambulance."
Eight other people died at the concert, with the victim's ages ranging from 14 to 27: Mirza Baig, 27, Rodolfo Peña, 23, Madison Dubiski, 23, Franco Patino, 21, Axel Acosta Avila, 21, Jacob Jurinek, 20, Brianna Rodriguez, 16, and John Hilgert, 14.
Our thoughts are with the victims' loved ones at this difficult time.
