The CEO of Paradocs, the medical company hired by Astroworld festival, has shared his side of the story in regards to what transpired on Nov. 5.
In an interview with CNN on Monday, Alex Pollak said his staff did everything they could to help the victims, and that they dealt with the “impossible feat” of treating 11 cardiac arrests simultaneously. “This is something I’ll have nightmares about for the rest of my life,” Pollak said. “The team is extremely broken up about it. Seeing so many young people getting CPR at one time, it’s just something no one should have to go through. Even though we’re medical professionals, we should be used it. You can’t get used to something like that.”
Pollak added that the company’s protocol for events like festivals prohibits them from entering a situation that might cause team members personal harm, but said that they went into the crowd during the deadly surge anyway to do what they could. “We were doing CPR on the back of carts trying to get out of that crowd,” Pollak said. “People were jumping on top of the carts, they were pulling us off people, they thought it was a joke.”
Pollak added that the standard ratio for events like major music festivals is one medic per thousand people. ParaDocs had resources prepared for 70,000 attendees, despite only 50,000 people showing up. While his company did not have the authority to stop the show, he believes stopping it sooner could have resulted in riots. “We never came close to running out of equipment and supplies,” he said. “We could have treated at least double the amount of patients. We never expected in our lives to encounter a situation like that. It was absolutely horrific.”
The Astroworld fest tragedy, which took the lives of 10 people, has resulted in dozens of lawsuits aimed at Travis Scott and the festival’s organizers. Last Friday, Attorneys Ben Crump and Alex Hilliard held a news conference to announce the filing of more lawsuits from over 200 attendees of the festival. They have reportedly filed 110 lawsuits and are planning on filing 90 more.
HAPPENING NOW: More #Astroworld fallout. Attorney Ben Crump, Alex Hilliard and John Duffy of Hilliard Martinez Gonzales says they are now representing over 200 clients and are announcing 90 more lawsuits. A few victims are joining the attorneys outside the courthouse. pic.twitter.com/UHax71WO9k
— Brhe Berry ABC13 (@BrheABC13) November 12, 2021
The fallout has also caused artists everywhere to re-evaluate their concert safety. SZA, who had performed at Astroworld festival earlier in the day, recently paused one of her own shows to make sure everyone was good after a fan passed out. SZA stopped her whole show to make sure a fan was ok pic.twitter.com/R9ndx4luRZ
— DJ Akademiks (@Akademiks) November 11, 2021
She said that attendees fainting at her show isn’t out of the norm, but pointed out that “people don’t die in concerts all the time.”
