'Hundreds of pounds of force': Compression asphyxia was cause of death in Astroworld tragedy

A report by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences has declared compression asphyxia as the cause of death for all victims of the tragic Astroworld Festival event last month. 

The annual music event, organized by performer Travis Scott, resulted in the loss of 10 individuals, ranging from nine to 27 years of age. At least 300 others had been injured. 

“When we have compression asphyxiation, you’re looking at so much force – hundreds of pounds of force outside the chest – to where there’s force outside the chest emptying the chest,” UT Health Houston Dr. George Williams told KHOU 11 after the report was released Dec. 16.  

The Nov. 5 tragedy followed a crowd surge during Scott’s performance, leaving victims trampled, unconscious and in cardiac arrest in a crowd of 50,000 festival-goers, the report states. 

“When there’s barely standing room and you’re shoulder-to-shoulder with people both in the front and the back, all it takes is one person tripping on a rock or pushing forward to where you get a domino effect and one person pushes another and the next and the next. And all that collective weight can end up on just a few people,” Williams said. 

According to the report, the youngest victim, 9-year-old Ezra Blount entered a medically induced coma after attending the festival with his father Treston and being crushed in the surge. 

“I had my son on my shoulders awaiting (D)rake's stage appearance,” Treston wrote in a GoFundMe last month. “I began to be crushed until I couldn’t breathe, I passed out (a)nd I woke up and my son was gone.”

The National Library of Medicine describes compression asphyxia as a process seen when external pressure cuts air off from the body, KHOU reports. 

Though this is reported as the cause of death for all 10 victims, the forensic report listed combined toxic effects of cocaine, methamphetamine and ethanol as a contributing cause of death for 27-year-old Mirza Danish Baig, the eldest victim of the Nov. 5 tragedy.

As Houston police look into the possibility of filing criminal charges, ABC 13 reports the tragedy remains under investigation.