'We were fighting to come up to the top and breathe to stay alive': Funeral services held for Astroworld victims

A week after a crowd surge at Houston's Astroworld Festival claimed 10 lives and injured dozens, survivors hold funeral services for their deceased loved ones.

Bharti Shahani, a 22-year-old Texas A&M University student who attended the event with her sister and her cousin, succumbed to her injuries, becoming the ninth fatality of the tragedy. Shahani's surviving family have set up a GoFundMe page. 

"For the first time in her life she just wanted to have fun, and that was taken from her," Shahani's sister Namrata said. 

Shahani's cousin Mohit Bellani also commented. Bellani was also at the concert. 

"Once one person fell, people started toppling like dominos. It was like a sinkhole. People were falling on top of each other," Bellani told ABC13. "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."

The Shahani family's attorney blames the producers of the event for the deaths, citing a lack of medical staff, security and excessive barricades. Bharti was an electronic systems engineering student at Texas A&M and was on schedule to graduate in the spring with an internship lined up for the summer afterward. The death toll entered the double digits on the night of Nov. 14. 

Nine-year-old Ezra Blount died from his injuries, replacing 14-year-old John Hilgert as the youngest victim. Blount attended the show with his father. Attorney James Lassiter, who is representing the Shahani family, confirmed that Bharti was the woman who fell off a gurney during an evacuation attempt by first responders as depicted in a widely circulated video. Funeral services were held for Brianna Rodriguez, one of two of the teen victims, on Nov. 13. 

Brianna was a 16-year-old junior at Houston's Heights High School, where she was also a member of its award-winning dance team. Houston Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee gave the eulogy at her funeral and gave her parents an American flag, according to a report from CBS. Jackson Lee also visited Rodriguez's high school.