Bharti Shahani, a 22-year-old Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University student, has been declared brain dead after she suffered an injury in the Astroworld Festival crowd surge that killed at least eight people. Bharti is currently on a ventilator, and her family is deliberating their next move. Bharti, her sister Namrata Shahani and cousin Mohit Bellani attended the concert together, but were separated from each other in the chaos that ensued. Namrata and Mohit both lost their cell phones and couldn’t contact Bharti. “Once we let go of her hand, the next time we saw her, we were in the ER,” Namrata said. Bharti was taken to the Houston Methodist Hospital by ambulance, while her parents went from hospital to hospital before they eventually found her. “They took us to her room, and she was bleeding and on a ventilator. Me and my wife were too shocked. We can’t even stand in there,” her father, Sunny Shahani, said. He added, “The doctors, they say the chances of survival are nothing, which I have not even spoken to my wife until now. We keep saying we’ll pray. I request all of Houston to pray for her. Maybe the prayers might work as a miracle for her.” Her cousin said that a tragedy like this should ‘never happen to anyone ever again’.
Describing the harrowing incident, he said, “Once one person fell, people started toppling like dominos. It was like a sinkhole. People were falling on top of each other. There were like layers of bodies on the ground, like two people thick. We were fighting to come up to the top and breathe to stay alive.” Bharti has been studying electronics systems engineering at university, and is set to graduate in the spring .Jacob Jurinek (21), John Hilgert (14), Brianna Rodriguez (16), Franco Patiño (21), Axel Acosta (21), Rudy Peña (23), Madison Dubiski (23) and Danish Baig (27) have been identified as those who died on Friday after fans in the crowd of around 50,000 people, began to rush towards the stage where Travis Scott was performing. Travis opened up about the tragedy and tweeted, “I’m absolutely devastated by what took place last night. My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at Astroworld Festival. Houston PD has my total support as they continue to look into the tragic loss of life. I am committed to working together with the Houston community to heal and support families in need. Thank you to Houston PD, Fire Department, and NRG Park for their immediate response and support. Love You All.”