BEAUMONT, Texas — Multiple people could face legal ramification after a crowd surge at an Astroworld Festival left eight dead, hundreds injured and dozens hospitalized.
Brandon Hebert, Beaumont native and paramedic, attended Friday night's concert with his girlfriend. The Beaumont paramedic said he did not realize the night had taken a fatal turn until he woke up Saturday morning and saw the news.
“I had looked at my phone and had gotten a couple texts that gave me some clues that something was going on,” Hebert said. “The overwhelming feeling I have is I could have fixed this. I could've done something."
Hebert and his girlfriend were toward the back of the crowd during the show. While they did get bumped into occasionally, they were not in the crowd surge.
The paramedic said he did not notice the emergency vehicles and personnel because the concert site was so large and there were many people in attendance. Even though Travis Scott paused during performances to ask if certain people were OK, Hebert said nothing felt out of the ordinary.
"I kind of just thought like that's his thing, like, he gets his fans rowdy, and they kind of have a good time, and then he kind of looks out for them" Hebert said.
Hebert said he is keeping victims of that night and their families in his prayers. As a health professional, Hebert feels a tremendous amount of guilt that he could not do more to help those in need.
"I just feel absolutely heartbroken and shattered," Hebert said.
There will be many layers of liability when it comes to Friday night’s tragic incident, David Starnes, personal injury attorney, said.
Event organizers usually put a waiver on tickets stating they are not responsible if someone gets hurt or injured. However, according to Starnes, Astroworld promoter, Live Nation, along with event vendors and security could face lawsuits and additional punitive damages if they are found to have been grossly negligent.
Starnes believes the incident deserves a great deal of attention and a thorough investigation. The attorney called Friday night's fatal incident an “abject security failure.”
“If you let this go by it will happen numerous times, so this failure needs to be brought to the attention of regulators and the public so that it never happens again,” Starnes said.
In addition to the lawsuit that has already been filed against Scott and festival organizers, Starnes expects there to be wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits filed by the families of those hurt or killed.
These lawsuits could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.
Starnes said it could take years for investigators to pour over everything. He anticipates it will take time for investigators to scour through cellphone video taken at the concert to determine what went wrong and who will be liable.
“There's 50,000 people there, so there's a vast group of videos that will need to be skewered and gone through in detail, bit by bit,” Starnes said.
Starnes said something should have been done when people rushed the gates and security checkpoints, because this was a red flag of what was to come.