A Northeast Ohio father describes a frightening experience after his teenage son was hurt at the deadly Travis Scott music concert in Houston.
A huge crowd surge resulted in the deaths of eight people and the injury of dozens more.
The 17-year-old male from Jackson Township in Stark County didn’t feel like talking today. His father reports that he is still experiencing a lot of pain and discomfort.
Cooper Downerd is a big Travis Scott fan, so he purchased tickets to the Astroworld Festival in May. He worked various odd jobs to earn cash for the concert and airfare for him and his father to go to Texas.
“He had footprints all over him, you know; he had been trampled.” Todd Downerd, his father, explained.
Due to his recent ankle surgery, Downer’s son was in the ADA section. His father had gone out to get him a T-shirt just as the concert commenced.
“At this time, Travis Scott had already started and I was attempting to push my way through it when there was a surge of people emerging from the area and trying to get out because it was so terrible,” continued Grier.
According to Mr. Downerd, he eventually made his way back to the area, but Cooper wasn’t there. His son called him 20 minutes later, informing him that the surge had injured him.
“He goes, ‘Dad, it’s not good,’ and I made a beeline for him. To try to get to the medical tent, I had to cut through all these people again, and when I got there, he was on a cot wearing a neck brace… He’d lost his shoes while being pushed around in the crowd.”
Cooper suffered minor scrapes on his head, but his vital signs were normal. His father claims that he personally observed individuals who were not as fortunate.
“I saw at least six individuals receiving CPR and I knew they wouldn’t survive. I’m referring to the fact that you can’t perform CPR for as long as we did and someone survives. On the EKG machines, I observed the flatlines, and it was really devastating.” Downerd recalled.
After the show, Cooper was transported to the hospital by ambulance and released early Saturday morning. Todd explained that he recognized things were going badly before the performance even started.
People were shooting off little fireworks in the video, and according to him, there was a rush to get in to the venue before the deadly serge within.
“Around 10 a.m., actually it was more like 9:30 a.m., there was a surge and people just pushed through the gate, and people just started running over the footbridge to get to the main entrance,” Downerd recalled.
Cooper’s father has been to enough concerts to know what he’s talking about, but nothing like this has ever happened to him.
“It’s the unwritten law. If someone goes down, you must lift them up. The security appeared to be insufficient, so I believe it failed on so many fronts,” he remarked.
Bobby Downerd’s father informed me that doctors in Ohio determined his son has a concussion.
He’ll be out of school for at least the next five days.
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