SAN ANTONIO – A Laredo man who attended the deadly Astroworld Music Festival filed a lawsuit with a San Antonio law firm, hoping that the chaos he experienced that night will not happen again.
Hector Pescador, 28, was in the front of the crowd when the rush started at the Travis Scott concert.
“When the countdown started from 30 minutes, that is when so many people started pushing forward,” he said. “We couldn’t move. Our hands were pushed together. We couldn’t raise our hands. Once we raised our hands, we couldn’t put them down. Once we put them down, we couldn’t raise them up. It was so tight in there. I was sore for three to four days.”
It took Pescador 15 minutes to get out of the crowd, and he suffered internal bruising. He also witnessed several people dying.
“I saw these people being carried out, thinking it was dehydration or they didn’t eat,” he said. “I did not expect them to be deceased already, and the fact that they didn’t stop the show before that, I don’t get it. There was a large portion of the crowd that was saying to stop the show, and they never did. I saw a total of three people that were dead. The last person was the worst one. After the concert had finished, there was a man on the floor already blue.”
He said the entire experience was traumatic especially knowing that Rudy Pena, his brother’s friend, was among the people who passed away.
“He was in school with my brother,” Pescador said. “He was his teammate, and when he told me that, that is what devastated me the most, seeing my little brother sad and angry at the same time. The current thought in my head is, ‘How did I make it out?’ That is what keeps me up at night, knowing I went there to have fun, and that could have been me.”
Pescador joins three others who filed a lawsuit with the Cesar Ornelas Law Firm.
The firm is also representing people from San Antonio and El Paso.
“I think the most infuriating thing for us is that this could have been and should have been avoided,” said Angela Tabares, an attorney. “Even if you don’t have a performer like Travis Scott, who is known to incite his fans and create mayhem, this is still such an egregious mistake.”
She and attorney Jon Carlo Serna are sorting through evidence from social media that includes what they say are clear indications that the defendants did not obtain credible security to work the event.
“They are told, ‘Hey, you are going to go here, and some of you guys are going to go there,’” said Tabares. “If I wanted to be a security guard for the day, they would have hired me! Essentially, the payment for it is that you get to go to Astroworld for free. Once there, they don’t know what they are doing. They are not properly trained. Some people would wear their security vests, but once inside, they would take them off and just enjoy their time. I believe it was a way to cut corners and a way to just get more fans to attend.”
Serna even became emotional during the press conference.
“They are having to jump in to be security,” Serna said. “They are having to jump in to be EMS. They are trying to revive people on the floor. They are doing the job of what Live Nation and the other defendants should have been doing.”
The law firm said they have four more lawsuits pending. A total of 13 defendants, including Travis Scott and Drake, are included because they feel the performers are just as responsible as the organizers.
It is unclear how much each lawsuit is worth, but the attorneys said it is indeed a multimillion-dollar prosecution.
“Most people don’t see dead bodies in their life, much less at a music festival,” Serna said. “This trauma will follow them forever.”
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