December 23, 2021 • 27 mins
A chaotic opening night at the Astroworld Festival results in 10 people dead and hundreds more injured, as the crowd of 50,000 people surges toward the stage during Travis Scott's concert. Victims range in age from 9-years-old to 27-years-old. According to the medical examiner's report all 10 of the victims died from compression asphyxia. Today on Body Bags, former death scene investigator Joseph Scott Morgan explains the physical aspects of this type of death.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Body Backs with Joseph Scott Morgan. Imagine going out with
friends and family. You've waited all this time, You've gone online,
you bought tickets, You've got passes, and the one thing
(00:32):
that you want to hear or the songs of your
favorite performer. It all turned a tragedy at astra World
as a concert put on by Travis Scott. Day, we're
gonna talk about the deaths of ten people. I'm Joseph
Scott Morgan and this is Body Backs Back with me
(00:58):
today is my good friend Jackie Howard, executive producer of
Crime Stories. Would Nancy Grace, Jackie, what can you tell
us about this tragedy? Ten people died in a stampede
at the astral World festival in Houston during rapper Travis
Scott's concert. And now we do have a ruling by
the Harris County Medical Examiner on those debts. Those victims
(01:22):
were aged nine to seven years old, and they died
of compression asphyxia, according to the examiner's report. Another three
hundred people were injured. Now, the audience was over fifty
thousand people and from what we know a large majority
of those patrons started to storm the stage which led
(01:43):
to these debts. I have so many questions, but let's
start with the fact, Joe, that this is not the
first time that something like this has happened, right you are, Jackie,
It's not the first time in in the human nature.
It seems like we never learned from tragedies, do we.
It's almost like history repeats itself. And you know, when
(02:03):
when I first heard about these deaths and well the injuries,
you know, because at first we didn't know how many
people had died. We didn't know if anybody had died,
but we knew that folks had been injured. It was
it was total anarchy out there. And immediately I began
to reflect back to my youth, and you know what
happened up in Cincinnati at the infamous Who concert where
(02:26):
you know, you had many people up there, uh, that
were injured there, and as well, you had folks that
were crushed to death. I think that there were eleven
deaths at that concert. There were, and uh, I still remember,
you know, reflecting back over the years, how impactful that
moment was. And there were a lot of questions that
(02:47):
were asked, Uh, you know, why wasn't somebody you know,
kind of guarding the gate, if you will, and that
that's not necessarily I don't mean that in a sense
of of a guard. I mean people managing the flow
uh of people coming in and out. Because the one
thing that we know about human nature, Jackie, is that
when people get super excited, adrenaline kicks in and people
(03:10):
getting to press forward. And if you've ever been to
a parade or something like that, or maybe you've been
a concert for those uh, for those of you that
are listening, and you're super excited about going to this thing,
and then all of a sudden, you feel yourself being
kind of caught up and you don't have any control
over what's going on in the space around you. And
(03:30):
the WHO concert made me think also about what's referred
to as the infamous Hillsborough disaster, which happened over in
the UK many years ago at a football match, a
soccer match where you had ninety seven just imagine this,
jack You had nineties seven people that were asphyxiated. They
were crushed to death as a result of people pushing forward,
(03:54):
and they were in what we're referred to as pens
and they you know, they kind of had the the
area kind of cordined off where people couldn't they couldn't
break free, there was no point of escape, and so
you have this massive humanity, like a crushing wave of
people that are impacting these individuals that are in this
(04:16):
arrested area where they can go no further. How horrible
would that be just the thought of that not to
be able to break free, you don't have anywhere to go.
It causes some people to in this case to jump
over railings and people were injured that way. And then
if you're at the bottom of the pile, you have
no way. It's a it's an unsurvivabal event. And what
(04:38):
Hillsborough has in in connection would say, for instance, what
happened at Asher World is that these were general admission tickets.
So it's it's kind of like, you know, you begin
to think, you know, uh, first come, first served, you
want to press in. There's no assign seating that sort
of thing. So at just from Jump Street, you've got
(04:58):
you've got chaos. And you remember what I said about
excitement um when I covered this case not too many
years ago as well, But there was this tragedy that
had actually occurred up in Rhode Island and it was
the Station nightclub fire. And in that case that was
here in the US, we had a hundred dead. And
(05:19):
you think, well, Morgan, you're talking about a fire. Yeah,
I'm talking about a fire. But what happens when people
scream fire? Remember the old adage about that it's illegal
to scream fire in a movie theater. And one of
the rationales behind this is that you get this kind
of herd mentality where people are panicking and they're running
and you you're trampling people. That's why they tell you
(05:41):
to be ordered. You know, when we're kids, we go
through fire drills at school. You're ordered in getting out.
If not, the weakest in the crowd are gonna be
left behind and crushed. So and you know, in the
case in Rhode Island, yeah, there were people that died
as a result of say, for instance, smoke anhilation, But
many of these people died as result of being crushed
and being trapped and not having a point of escape
(06:05):
in this particular case, and and of course it leads
to tragedy. Jackie. Let's talk specifics, Joe about what literally happened.
You have a throng of people fifty that we know
of now I'm not saying all fifty took part in this,
but we have a lot of people that are are
are wanting to watch and be close to the stage.
(06:27):
So what exactly happened? The crowd started pushing forward. And
you know, I'm from the South as well. You say,
that's like putting fifty pounds of mud in a five
pound sack. Yeah, you, And it is. It is all
about volume, isn't it. And that's what that old expression
goes to, Jackie. There's there's only so much that a
(06:48):
particular area can contain without their becoming stressors that are exhibited,
you know. And in this case you mentioned stage, and
stage is kind of a blocking area, if you will,
and there's only one area to kind of escape too,
and that gets that becomes progressively more and more narrow
as people panic because they're all shooting for that area.
(07:11):
And in this case, people started pushing forward toward the stage.
And generally, if if folks have ever been to a
general emission concert, there's a barricade that kind of separates
the stage, and you'll have like security people that are
in between the stage and the barricade, and the barricade
separates the people from the stage and folks began to
(07:31):
press forward. I think that one of the questions that
people had is that why was there not more of
an awareness on the part of Travis Scott and those
individuals that are uh performing and that are providing the
entertainment and folks are you know, they're in a mad rush?
And I would assume that maybe if you're up on
(07:52):
the stage and you're in a fevered moment and people
are getting excited, it's probably kind of hard to interpret
it as being in anything other than enthusiasm maybe, And
of course, in this particular case, because you've got this
crushing event and that's what this winds up being, um,
a pressure event. Uh, then it's hard to delineate that,
(08:15):
particularly from a great distance, you know, where you're elevated
above the crowd, you're engaging, you're entertaining, and this sort
of thing. So there were a lot of things that
kind of fell apart, you know, security fell apart. I
think folks that were panicking, they were not aware of
the individuals that around them. All they could think of
was I need to get the safety. And that's that's
(08:36):
kind of a promptent response, isn't it. And so at
the end, though, you have all of these individuals that
are heavily compressed and in a confined area, and this
comes down to the density of the crowd. And when
people that study these sorts of things relative to movement
(08:57):
of humanity, uh, there's there's actually Folks don't believe this,
but there are actually areas in academia where people uh
study uh population and population at venues like this. They
make their entire career off of this. And unfortunately, I
think that a lot of the people that study these
things in academia, that data doesn't necessarily make it down
(09:19):
to the individuals that have their let's say, they're their
their hand on the control leavers here, and that's what
wound up happening. It was poorly managed. There wasn't an
awareness for those that might be weaker in the crowd,
and there certainly wasn't awareness of how much danger existed
in this environment. Jackie, I don't know about you, but
(09:58):
by the nature I'm I'm a lost photoed person. I
wouldn't have done two good uh you know, in the
military on a submarine. And I think about these people
in this environment and how panicked they must have been,
you know, you begin to feel pressure on you. Maybe
there's even this fear that you can't breathe, that you
(10:18):
can't escape. Can you imagine how horrible that is? I
can't imagine how horrible that is, and honestly I don't
want to. Because what we know that happened is as
the crowd a fifty thou people started to searche towards
the stage, at some point these individuals were caught. They
were trapped and him the inn by the barricades set
(10:38):
up to protect the performers on the stage. There were
barricades on three sides, so these victims were caught and unable,
as you were mentioning earlier to to escape, they could
not get out. Um, we know that some of the
victims fell on the ground and were trampled as the
crowd searched forward. So we know, according to the medical
(10:59):
examiners for or that these individuals were essentially crushed to
death in the crowd compression asphyxia. So explain to me
what compression asphyxia is specifically, and then we can go
from there. Joe, Yeah, Jackie, you know, we hear the
terms phyxia all the time in death investigation and as
(11:20):
certainly we've learned over this past year when cases like
Gabby Petito in other cases, we know that it has
something to do with a lack of oxygen, doesn't it.
Anytime you hear this term asphyxia and in uh in
compression asphyxia specifically, it's different than say, things like a
choking or literature strangulation of hanging or or even uh say,
(11:42):
for instance, a smothering, even though there are some elements
that are similar. But with compression, we have to think
about two areas. First off, the chest, all right, and
then we have to think about the neck. So just imagine,
if you will, you're in a very kind of tight,
constricted space where individuals are pressing on you and are inhibiting, uh,
(12:11):
the your ability for your chest to rise and fall.
Remember that's one of the things that we look for
in um in in death investigation, well specifically in emergency medicine.
One of the questions I'll ask is their chest rising
and falling. What that means is are they inhalating and
exhalating air? Okay? And so absent that ability to inhalate
(12:33):
and exhalate, that means that you're you're not taking in
oxygen all right, your lungs are not taking it in,
and of course it has to process it. And then
of course that that oxygen rich blood that's that's transported.
You know, the oxygen is transported via the hemoglobe, and
it keeps us pumping, doesn't It keeps us going. So
you have this event where this oxygen supply is cut off.
(12:58):
So if you're if you expand your chest and breathe
in air, you're in trouble. Now. The other area where
compression asphyxia takes place, and something that has to be
considered is a compression of the neck. Again, an area
we've talked about where you have a pressure that is
(13:18):
being applied to the neck externally, externally and so that
it's it's impacting or squeezing down on the carotid vessels.
These are the two major vessels that run up the
neck and into the brain and supply the brain directly
with oxygen. And this is what happens when the oxygen
(13:41):
to the brain is cut off, if you will, um
or is diminished. This this results in what in a
condition that's referred to as a noxia. Individuals become a
noxic and they cannot they don't have sufficient air supply
our oxygen to the brain so that the brain can function. Remember,
(14:02):
and I talked about this quite a bit. The brain
is is essentially the uh most vascular organ in the body,
and what that means is that it requires the greatest
amount of blood flow is certainly oxygen eated blood, in
order to supply it with energy so that it can
process everything that goes on in our body, whether it's
(14:23):
it's motor movement, you know, where we're moving around, we're
blinking our eyes and all that stuff, or in the
autonomic sense auto meaning self where it's telling our heart
to beat, it's telling us to breathe, all these other
functions that we don't have to think about that just
kind of happened. That's the autonomic nervous system. So all
of that oxygen and that energy that's that's that derives
(14:45):
from oxygenated blood is essentially cut off at that moment
time and it can lead to catastrophic outcomes. Um, you'll
have individuals that uh may very well, at a very
i'm a level, still be technically alive, but they go
into a comatose state as a result of this oxygen deprivation.
(15:08):
If you will, and so in this case, there were
several people that were taken to the hospital that never
regained consciousness, and that's because they had their oxygen supply
that was removed from them. Some of these people had
to be placed on event just to keep them alive,
to see if they would if they would survive, and
of course, as we know, it didn't happen. So how
(15:28):
much pressure does it take to keep you from being
able to expand your lungs? We know that some of
these victims were as young as nine, so obviously it's
gonna be different, I would imagine for a child as
it would be for an adult. How much pressure does
it take to keep you from expanding your lungs? Yeah,
(15:51):
that's that's an excellent question. And it's going to be variable,
depended upon the person. And say, it's going to be
depended upon their structure. If you will give me a
little latitude here, It's gonna be depended upon the architectural
structure of their body. You know how robust they are,
you know how muscular they are? What kind of uh,
what kind of medical condition are are lack thereof? Do
(16:14):
they have any? Are they predisposed to any kind of
medical problems like long problems, are heart problems, anything that
might inhibit their ability to function at a normal level.
So you begin to impact them with weight. And let
me give you an ideas to what happened as these
individuals were essentially being I don't necessarily like the term
(16:38):
crushed because it implies, you know, like you're like you're
literally stepping on something to crush it. And I'm sure
that there were blunt force trauma injuries that could be
associated with with stepping on and kind of crushing, if
you will. But this is compression where you're pressing down
tighter and tighter and tighter. So let's just say, for instance,
one individual is laying on the ground and that's firm surface.
(17:00):
We have to assume that the ground out there was
probably an asphalt or concrete surface. And as bodies begin
to pile on top of this individual, the individual, if
they weigh say, for instance, I don't know, a hundred
forty pounds, Let's say this little child, the child was
only nine um. That child is not gonna weigh certainly,
(17:21):
it's not gonna weigh in excess of you know, eighty
to ninety pounds. I would think it at the top
end um. Then you have let's say, for instance, a
hundred and seventy five pound man trips and falls on
top of that child, and then another hundred and seventy
five pound man, and maybe you throw in somebody that
weighs two hund fifty pounds, and all the while that
(17:41):
child is being pressed down further and further and further,
and his little body cannot compensate, It can't fight against
the weight that is being applied to his body and
his his body's need to get that chest expanded so
he can breathe the air in. So the more weight
you have a the more difficult it's going to become.
(18:02):
Now I do know that you know i'd mentioned medical conditions.
There was one individual in this group of ten where
compression asphyxia was was made note of UH that he did,
in fact have drugs on board. I think that the
individual UH had t HC on board. He also had
meth amphetamine and these sorts of things. So you begin
(18:24):
to to factor that into that individual's ability to breathe
in this highly uh kind of antagonistic environment that's going
to compromise their their their body even further. Hold on, Joe, Yeah,
what do you mean by that you're saying it's going
to compromise their ability. You're saying that just even if
(18:48):
it's marijuana, Let's say it's going to take you to
to what I mean, is it gonna it's not going
to lower your oxygen capacity, but how is it going
to impede breathing? Well? Yeah, I mean it could be
marijuana or alcohol or any number of things, but it's
going to impair your ability, your response time. For instance,
(19:09):
it's gonna slow your breathing anyway. So you're gonna be
compromised in that sense. And this individual, I don't know
anything about his medical history, but if he has these
drugs on board, I think that scientifically you have to
kind of sit back and scratch your head and say, well,
if he's got this history at that moment time where
he has this these drugs on board, how long has
(19:31):
he been engaged in the behavior utilizing things like methamphetamine
UM which can have dire respiratory outcomes just in and
of itself, and certainly it can lead to things like hypertension,
increased blood pressure, that sort of thing, And that's never
a good good situation to be in, particularly when you're
panicked and your shallow breathing and all of these things
(19:52):
that are going on. So it's a recipe completely for disaster.
So if you have a clear mind and you don't
you don't have any kind of drugs on board, it's
still gonna be tough. But can you imagine how further
exacerbated this condition could be as a result of having
something that would put you into an alterna mental status.
(20:31):
You know, you think about going to a concert. I
can't tell you over the course of my life how
many I've been to, particularly outdoor concerts. I love them. Uh,
you don't have this expectation that when you go, uh,
your life is gonna come come to an end completely
surrounded by strangers, and that there will be other people
to your left and to your right that are dying
(20:52):
as well. What a what a horrible way to go,
Jackie Joe. We know that these individuals kind of compression asphyxia.
We also know that some individuals fell to the ground
and were trampled. As you were saying earlier, is there
a difference in that kind of a kne injury where
the people if they died on the ground, were they
(21:13):
trampled or could they not breathe. Well, it's it's going
to be a combination. I think that that when you
begin to traumatize individuals by trampling them, and trampling, to me,
implies not so much positional or compressionist fix the event,
it that goes to blunt force trauma. Right and and uh,
(21:35):
you know, Nancy Grace and I have covered cases over
the years that are quite brutal where uh, individuals have
been literally stomped to death. Okay, that's blunt force trauma. Now,
these individuals may very well and again I haven't seen
the autopsy reports, but in an event like this, you're
going to have blunt force trauma that can be identified
on that And what does that mean, Well, you you
(21:57):
could very well have large contusions. And some of these contusions,
and this is kind of haunting, Jackie, some of these contusions,
uh will actually have the appearance of a footprint. You
can actually see a shoe tread uh that's left behind
as a result of this. And that's just kind of
a pattern injury, which is something that we look for
in forensics all the time. You can have pattern injuries, say,
(22:20):
for instance, if an individual stomped on on the back
back side of their leg. Let's say they're laying face down,
you stomp on them on the back side of their
leg as you're running away. Your footprint might be on
the on say, the back of their thigh, but on
the front of their thigh, there's also gonna be uh
an evidence of an abraided area that comes from the
underlying surface. So that's happening as a result of this
(22:43):
compression that's taking place, but it's quickly removed. Uh. You
can have people that, say, for instance, are not senseless
because maybe the top of their head has been stepped on,
their knocked unconscious and well, now they're in a compromised
position where they don't have a level of con biousness,
but their body still requires oxygen, and they don't have
the ability to move and get up out of that
(23:05):
area because now they don't have any sense about them
to do this. That that primal thing is kind of
left him at this point, because that that primal response
to survival is left because they're unconscious, but yet you
still have to breathe, and all the while people are
piling on top of them, and that really paints this
horrific picture. And you know, Jackie one of the one
(23:30):
of the things that you know, it kind of reflects
back in my mind and I think about what what
they're faced with here in this case and making these
diagnosis and what, you know, what the road looks like
going forward. Um. First off, there is a level of
horror to these deaths that I don't think that many
people can comprehend if you've never been in this kind
(23:52):
of circumstance. And you know, you hear when you're around
lawyers a lot, uh like I am, you know, uh uh,
And particularly in the civil context when you're talking about
civil litigation as post criminal litigation. One of the things
that one of the measures that they do UM in
civil law, Remember, you don't look for guilt or innocence
(24:13):
in our guilt or not guilty in civil law, you
look for, uh. Damage is relative to a propensity of evidence.
That means, how much evidence do you have that demonstrates
what you're trying to trying to prove. They used the
term pain and suffering quite a bit, and I don't
know that that there are many things that could surpass
that at this level where you have this much pain
(24:36):
and suffering that's inflicted on people because it's a torturous
way to die. You have an awareness, many of these
people may have that they don't have an ability to
breathe and there's no way to escape. Can you imagine
being this panicked in this environment? And interestingly enough, when
you look at the history of compression asphyxia and to
(24:58):
give you an idea how how far back this goes
in human history? There there have been a number of
crushing events that go hundreds of years back, you know,
where people have panicked and run run over. But a
lot of people don't realize that that compression asphyxia has
actually been used as a method of execution, and famously,
(25:18):
famously was actually utilized as a method of execution during
the Salem witch trials. There was one fellow that that
had stated and it's actually included in Arthur Miller's play
The Crucible, and this is this is documented accused this
guy being a witch, and they they put him between
two boards and began to stack weight on him and
(25:39):
until he would confess. And the guy never confessed. And
the only thing he ever said, Jack, you know what
he said, because he was not going to confess, he's
ay more weight, more weight, and they would put more
and more stones on top of his body until he
finally succumbed. And that's a very slow form of compressionist fixing.
It's torturous. You said it's a slow form, Joe. How
long would it take for you to die due to
(26:03):
compression asphyxia? How long did these victims suffer? I think
that this is this is the real horrific part of it.
And I have to go back to an example of say,
specific applied pressure. When you're talking about again in the
case of Cavvy Potito, where you're talking about where she
was throttled, where she had had hands wrapped around her throat,
(26:26):
and that is sustained pressure. Her death would have probably
have been a bit quicker because with this kind of uh,
compressionist phyxia, you might get a pause in there where
the weight shifts. And this is a very dynamic environment
because you've got people that are piling on top of
one another and they're rolling about and this sort of thing.
So you might have an opportunity in there where you're
(26:49):
being compressed and all of a sudden the weight shifts.
You can catch your breath again, but then the weight
shifts back, and this could this could take I don't know.
It could potentially take ten minutes for some of these
people to have died, and I think that that goes
to how torturous and laborious, uh this event would have been. UH.
And that's because it's it's you have a shifting of
(27:11):
weight that's going on because of the dynamics of the environment. Remember,
this is a frenzied crowd. People are running about, people
are screaming, people are rolling about. It's not like there's
constant pressure being applied specifically to them for the entire
duration until all life is gone. So it's very dynamic,
and I think that's gonna be very difficult for the
(27:32):
medical examiner if they have to get on the stand
in a case like this to actually give a specific
measure of I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body backs.
Body Backs with Joseph Scott Morgan. Imagine going out with
friends and family. You've waited all this time, You've gone online,
you bought tickets, You've got passes, and the one thing
(00:32):
that you want to hear or the songs of your
favorite performer. It all turned a tragedy at astra World
as a concert put on by Travis Scott. Day, we're
gonna talk about the deaths of ten people. I'm Joseph
Scott Morgan and this is Body Backs Back with me
(00:58):
today is my good friend Jackie Howard, executive producer of
Crime Stories. Would Nancy Grace, Jackie, what can you tell
us about this tragedy? Ten people died in a stampede
at the astral World festival in Houston during rapper Travis
Scott's concert. And now we do have a ruling by
the Harris County Medical Examiner on those debts. Those victims
(01:22):
were aged nine to seven years old, and they died
of compression asphyxia, according to the examiner's report. Another three
hundred people were injured. Now, the audience was over fifty
thousand people and from what we know a large majority
of those patrons started to storm the stage which led
(01:43):
to these debts. I have so many questions, but let's
start with the fact, Joe, that this is not the
first time that something like this has happened, right you are, Jackie,
It's not the first time in in the human nature.
It seems like we never learned from tragedies, do we.
It's almost like history repeats itself. And you know, when
(02:03):
when I first heard about these deaths and well the injuries,
you know, because at first we didn't know how many
people had died. We didn't know if anybody had died,
but we knew that folks had been injured. It was
it was total anarchy out there. And immediately I began
to reflect back to my youth, and you know what
happened up in Cincinnati at the infamous Who concert where
(02:26):
you know, you had many people up there, uh, that
were injured there, and as well, you had folks that
were crushed to death. I think that there were eleven
deaths at that concert. There were, and uh, I still remember,
you know, reflecting back over the years, how impactful that
moment was. And there were a lot of questions that
(02:47):
were asked, Uh, you know, why wasn't somebody you know,
kind of guarding the gate, if you will, and that
that's not necessarily I don't mean that in a sense
of of a guard. I mean people managing the flow
uh of people coming in and out. Because the one
thing that we know about human nature, Jackie, is that
when people get super excited, adrenaline kicks in and people
(03:10):
getting to press forward. And if you've ever been to
a parade or something like that, or maybe you've been
a concert for those uh, for those of you that
are listening, and you're super excited about going to this thing,
and then all of a sudden, you feel yourself being
kind of caught up and you don't have any control
over what's going on in the space around you. And
(03:30):
the WHO concert made me think also about what's referred
to as the infamous Hillsborough disaster, which happened over in
the UK many years ago at a football match, a
soccer match where you had ninety seven just imagine this,
jack You had nineties seven people that were asphyxiated. They
were crushed to death as a result of people pushing forward,
(03:54):
and they were in what we're referred to as pens
and they you know, they kind of had the the
area kind of cordined off where people couldn't they couldn't
break free, there was no point of escape, and so
you have this massive humanity, like a crushing wave of
people that are impacting these individuals that are in this
(04:16):
arrested area where they can go no further. How horrible
would that be just the thought of that not to
be able to break free, you don't have anywhere to go.
It causes some people to in this case to jump
over railings and people were injured that way. And then
if you're at the bottom of the pile, you have
no way. It's a it's an unsurvivabal event. And what
(04:38):
Hillsborough has in in connection would say, for instance, what
happened at Asher World is that these were general admission tickets.
So it's it's kind of like, you know, you begin
to think, you know, uh, first come, first served, you
want to press in. There's no assign seating that sort
of thing. So at just from Jump Street, you've got
(04:58):
you've got chaos. And you remember what I said about
excitement um when I covered this case not too many
years ago as well, But there was this tragedy that
had actually occurred up in Rhode Island and it was
the Station nightclub fire. And in that case that was
here in the US, we had a hundred dead. And
(05:19):
you think, well, Morgan, you're talking about a fire. Yeah,
I'm talking about a fire. But what happens when people
scream fire? Remember the old adage about that it's illegal
to scream fire in a movie theater. And one of
the rationales behind this is that you get this kind
of herd mentality where people are panicking and they're running
and you you're trampling people. That's why they tell you
(05:41):
to be ordered. You know, when we're kids, we go
through fire drills at school. You're ordered in getting out.
If not, the weakest in the crowd are gonna be
left behind and crushed. So and you know, in the
case in Rhode Island, yeah, there were people that died
as a result of say, for instance, smoke anhilation, But
many of these people died as result of being crushed
and being trapped and not having a point of escape
(06:05):
in this particular case, and and of course it leads
to tragedy. Jackie. Let's talk specifics, Joe about what literally happened.
You have a throng of people fifty that we know
of now I'm not saying all fifty took part in this,
but we have a lot of people that are are
are wanting to watch and be close to the stage.
(06:27):
So what exactly happened? The crowd started pushing forward. And
you know, I'm from the South as well. You say,
that's like putting fifty pounds of mud in a five
pound sack. Yeah, you, And it is. It is all
about volume, isn't it. And that's what that old expression
goes to, Jackie. There's there's only so much that a
(06:48):
particular area can contain without their becoming stressors that are exhibited,
you know. And in this case you mentioned stage, and
stage is kind of a blocking area, if you will,
and there's only one area to kind of escape too,
and that gets that becomes progressively more and more narrow
as people panic because they're all shooting for that area.
(07:11):
And in this case, people started pushing forward toward the stage.
And generally, if if folks have ever been to a
general emission concert, there's a barricade that kind of separates
the stage, and you'll have like security people that are
in between the stage and the barricade, and the barricade
separates the people from the stage and folks began to
(07:31):
press forward. I think that one of the questions that
people had is that why was there not more of
an awareness on the part of Travis Scott and those
individuals that are uh performing and that are providing the
entertainment and folks are you know, they're in a mad rush?
And I would assume that maybe if you're up on
(07:52):
the stage and you're in a fevered moment and people
are getting excited, it's probably kind of hard to interpret
it as being in anything other than enthusiasm maybe, And
of course, in this particular case, because you've got this
crushing event and that's what this winds up being, um,
a pressure event. Uh, then it's hard to delineate that,
(08:15):
particularly from a great distance, you know, where you're elevated
above the crowd, you're engaging, you're entertaining, and this sort
of thing. So there were a lot of things that
kind of fell apart, you know, security fell apart. I
think folks that were panicking, they were not aware of
the individuals that around them. All they could think of
was I need to get the safety. And that's that's
(08:36):
kind of a promptent response, isn't it. And so at
the end, though, you have all of these individuals that
are heavily compressed and in a confined area, and this
comes down to the density of the crowd. And when
people that study these sorts of things relative to movement
(08:57):
of humanity, uh, there's there's actually Folks don't believe this,
but there are actually areas in academia where people uh
study uh population and population at venues like this. They
make their entire career off of this. And unfortunately, I
think that a lot of the people that study these
things in academia, that data doesn't necessarily make it down
(09:19):
to the individuals that have their let's say, they're their
their hand on the control leavers here, and that's what
wound up happening. It was poorly managed. There wasn't an
awareness for those that might be weaker in the crowd,
and there certainly wasn't awareness of how much danger existed
in this environment. Jackie, I don't know about you, but
(09:58):
by the nature I'm I'm a lost photoed person. I
wouldn't have done two good uh you know, in the
military on a submarine. And I think about these people
in this environment and how panicked they must have been,
you know, you begin to feel pressure on you. Maybe
there's even this fear that you can't breathe, that you
(10:18):
can't escape. Can you imagine how horrible that is? I
can't imagine how horrible that is, and honestly I don't
want to. Because what we know that happened is as
the crowd a fifty thou people started to searche towards
the stage, at some point these individuals were caught. They
were trapped and him the inn by the barricades set
(10:38):
up to protect the performers on the stage. There were
barricades on three sides, so these victims were caught and unable,
as you were mentioning earlier to to escape, they could
not get out. Um, we know that some of the
victims fell on the ground and were trampled as the
crowd searched forward. So we know, according to the medical
(10:59):
examiners for or that these individuals were essentially crushed to
death in the crowd compression asphyxia. So explain to me
what compression asphyxia is specifically, and then we can go
from there. Joe, Yeah, Jackie, you know, we hear the
terms phyxia all the time in death investigation and as
(11:20):
certainly we've learned over this past year when cases like
Gabby Petito in other cases, we know that it has
something to do with a lack of oxygen, doesn't it.
Anytime you hear this term asphyxia and in uh in
compression asphyxia specifically, it's different than say, things like a
choking or literature strangulation of hanging or or even uh say,
(11:42):
for instance, a smothering, even though there are some elements
that are similar. But with compression, we have to think
about two areas. First off, the chest, all right, and
then we have to think about the neck. So just imagine,
if you will, you're in a very kind of tight,
constricted space where individuals are pressing on you and are inhibiting, uh,
(12:11):
the your ability for your chest to rise and fall.
Remember that's one of the things that we look for
in um in in death investigation, well specifically in emergency medicine.
One of the questions I'll ask is their chest rising
and falling. What that means is are they inhalating and
exhalating air? Okay? And so absent that ability to inhalate
(12:33):
and exhalate, that means that you're you're not taking in
oxygen all right, your lungs are not taking it in,
and of course it has to process it. And then
of course that that oxygen rich blood that's that's transported.
You know, the oxygen is transported via the hemoglobe, and
it keeps us pumping, doesn't It keeps us going. So
you have this event where this oxygen supply is cut off.
(12:58):
So if you're if you expand your chest and breathe
in air, you're in trouble. Now. The other area where
compression asphyxia takes place, and something that has to be
considered is a compression of the neck. Again, an area
we've talked about where you have a pressure that is
(13:18):
being applied to the neck externally, externally and so that
it's it's impacting or squeezing down on the carotid vessels.
These are the two major vessels that run up the
neck and into the brain and supply the brain directly
with oxygen. And this is what happens when the oxygen
(13:41):
to the brain is cut off, if you will, um
or is diminished. This this results in what in a
condition that's referred to as a noxia. Individuals become a
noxic and they cannot they don't have sufficient air supply
our oxygen to the brain so that the brain can function. Remember,
(14:02):
and I talked about this quite a bit. The brain
is is essentially the uh most vascular organ in the body,
and what that means is that it requires the greatest
amount of blood flow is certainly oxygen eated blood, in
order to supply it with energy so that it can
process everything that goes on in our body, whether it's
(14:23):
it's motor movement, you know, where we're moving around, we're
blinking our eyes and all that stuff, or in the
autonomic sense auto meaning self where it's telling our heart
to beat, it's telling us to breathe, all these other
functions that we don't have to think about that just
kind of happened. That's the autonomic nervous system. So all
of that oxygen and that energy that's that's that derives
(14:45):
from oxygenated blood is essentially cut off at that moment
time and it can lead to catastrophic outcomes. Um, you'll
have individuals that uh may very well, at a very
i'm a level, still be technically alive, but they go
into a comatose state as a result of this oxygen deprivation.
(15:08):
If you will, and so in this case, there were
several people that were taken to the hospital that never
regained consciousness, and that's because they had their oxygen supply
that was removed from them. Some of these people had
to be placed on event just to keep them alive,
to see if they would if they would survive, and
of course, as we know, it didn't happen. So how
(15:28):
much pressure does it take to keep you from being
able to expand your lungs? We know that some of
these victims were as young as nine, so obviously it's
gonna be different, I would imagine for a child as
it would be for an adult. How much pressure does
it take to keep you from expanding your lungs? Yeah,
(15:51):
that's that's an excellent question. And it's going to be variable,
depended upon the person. And say, it's going to be
depended upon their structure. If you will give me a
little latitude here, It's gonna be depended upon the architectural
structure of their body. You know how robust they are,
you know how muscular they are? What kind of uh,
what kind of medical condition are are lack thereof? Do
(16:14):
they have any? Are they predisposed to any kind of
medical problems like long problems, are heart problems, anything that
might inhibit their ability to function at a normal level.
So you begin to impact them with weight. And let
me give you an ideas to what happened as these
individuals were essentially being I don't necessarily like the term
(16:38):
crushed because it implies, you know, like you're like you're
literally stepping on something to crush it. And I'm sure
that there were blunt force trauma injuries that could be
associated with with stepping on and kind of crushing, if
you will. But this is compression where you're pressing down
tighter and tighter and tighter. So let's just say, for instance,
one individual is laying on the ground and that's firm surface.
(17:00):
We have to assume that the ground out there was
probably an asphalt or concrete surface. And as bodies begin
to pile on top of this individual, the individual, if
they weigh say, for instance, I don't know, a hundred
forty pounds, Let's say this little child, the child was
only nine um. That child is not gonna weigh certainly,
(17:21):
it's not gonna weigh in excess of you know, eighty
to ninety pounds. I would think it at the top
end um. Then you have let's say, for instance, a
hundred and seventy five pound man trips and falls on
top of that child, and then another hundred and seventy
five pound man, and maybe you throw in somebody that
weighs two hund fifty pounds, and all the while that
(17:41):
child is being pressed down further and further and further,
and his little body cannot compensate, It can't fight against
the weight that is being applied to his body and
his his body's need to get that chest expanded so
he can breathe the air in. So the more weight
you have a the more difficult it's going to become.
(18:02):
Now I do know that you know i'd mentioned medical conditions.
There was one individual in this group of ten where
compression asphyxia was was made note of UH that he did,
in fact have drugs on board. I think that the
individual UH had t HC on board. He also had
meth amphetamine and these sorts of things. So you begin
(18:24):
to to factor that into that individual's ability to breathe
in this highly uh kind of antagonistic environment that's going
to compromise their their their body even further. Hold on, Joe, Yeah,
what do you mean by that you're saying it's going
to compromise their ability. You're saying that just even if
(18:48):
it's marijuana, Let's say it's going to take you to
to what I mean, is it gonna it's not going
to lower your oxygen capacity, but how is it going
to impede breathing? Well? Yeah, I mean it could be
marijuana or alcohol or any number of things, but it's
going to impair your ability, your response time. For instance,
(19:09):
it's gonna slow your breathing anyway. So you're gonna be
compromised in that sense. And this individual, I don't know
anything about his medical history, but if he has these
drugs on board, I think that scientifically you have to
kind of sit back and scratch your head and say, well,
if he's got this history at that moment time where
he has this these drugs on board, how long has
(19:31):
he been engaged in the behavior utilizing things like methamphetamine
UM which can have dire respiratory outcomes just in and
of itself, and certainly it can lead to things like hypertension,
increased blood pressure, that sort of thing, And that's never
a good good situation to be in, particularly when you're
panicked and your shallow breathing and all of these things
(19:52):
that are going on. So it's a recipe completely for disaster.
So if you have a clear mind and you don't
you don't have any kind of drugs on board, it's
still gonna be tough. But can you imagine how further
exacerbated this condition could be as a result of having
something that would put you into an alterna mental status.
(20:31):
You know, you think about going to a concert. I
can't tell you over the course of my life how
many I've been to, particularly outdoor concerts. I love them. Uh,
you don't have this expectation that when you go, uh,
your life is gonna come come to an end completely
surrounded by strangers, and that there will be other people
to your left and to your right that are dying
(20:52):
as well. What a what a horrible way to go,
Jackie Joe. We know that these individuals kind of compression asphyxia.
We also know that some individuals fell to the ground
and were trampled. As you were saying earlier, is there
a difference in that kind of a kne injury where
the people if they died on the ground, were they
(21:13):
trampled or could they not breathe. Well, it's it's going
to be a combination. I think that that when you
begin to traumatize individuals by trampling them, and trampling, to me,
implies not so much positional or compressionist fix the event,
it that goes to blunt force trauma. Right and and uh,
(21:35):
you know, Nancy Grace and I have covered cases over
the years that are quite brutal where uh, individuals have
been literally stomped to death. Okay, that's blunt force trauma. Now,
these individuals may very well and again I haven't seen
the autopsy reports, but in an event like this, you're
going to have blunt force trauma that can be identified
on that And what does that mean, Well, you you
(21:57):
could very well have large contusions. And some of these contusions,
and this is kind of haunting, Jackie, some of these contusions,
uh will actually have the appearance of a footprint. You
can actually see a shoe tread uh that's left behind
as a result of this. And that's just kind of
a pattern injury, which is something that we look for
in forensics all the time. You can have pattern injuries, say,
(22:20):
for instance, if an individual stomped on on the back
back side of their leg. Let's say they're laying face down,
you stomp on them on the back side of their
leg as you're running away. Your footprint might be on
the on say, the back of their thigh, but on
the front of their thigh, there's also gonna be uh
an evidence of an abraided area that comes from the
underlying surface. So that's happening as a result of this
(22:43):
compression that's taking place, but it's quickly removed. Uh. You
can have people that, say, for instance, are not senseless
because maybe the top of their head has been stepped on,
their knocked unconscious and well, now they're in a compromised
position where they don't have a level of con biousness,
but their body still requires oxygen, and they don't have
the ability to move and get up out of that
(23:05):
area because now they don't have any sense about them
to do this. That that primal thing is kind of
left him at this point, because that that primal response
to survival is left because they're unconscious, but yet you
still have to breathe, and all the while people are
piling on top of them, and that really paints this
horrific picture. And you know, Jackie one of the one
(23:30):
of the things that you know, it kind of reflects
back in my mind and I think about what what
they're faced with here in this case and making these
diagnosis and what, you know, what the road looks like
going forward. Um. First off, there is a level of
horror to these deaths that I don't think that many
people can comprehend if you've never been in this kind
(23:52):
of circumstance. And you know, you hear when you're around
lawyers a lot, uh like I am, you know, uh uh,
And particularly in the civil context when you're talking about
civil litigation as post criminal litigation. One of the things
that one of the measures that they do UM in
civil law, Remember, you don't look for guilt or innocence
(24:13):
in our guilt or not guilty in civil law, you
look for, uh. Damage is relative to a propensity of evidence.
That means, how much evidence do you have that demonstrates
what you're trying to trying to prove. They used the
term pain and suffering quite a bit, and I don't
know that that there are many things that could surpass
that at this level where you have this much pain
(24:36):
and suffering that's inflicted on people because it's a torturous
way to die. You have an awareness, many of these
people may have that they don't have an ability to
breathe and there's no way to escape. Can you imagine
being this panicked in this environment? And interestingly enough, when
you look at the history of compression asphyxia and to
(24:58):
give you an idea how how far back this goes
in human history? There there have been a number of
crushing events that go hundreds of years back, you know,
where people have panicked and run run over. But a
lot of people don't realize that that compression asphyxia has
actually been used as a method of execution, and famously,
(25:18):
famously was actually utilized as a method of execution during
the Salem witch trials. There was one fellow that that
had stated and it's actually included in Arthur Miller's play
The Crucible, and this is this is documented accused this
guy being a witch, and they they put him between
two boards and began to stack weight on him and
(25:39):
until he would confess. And the guy never confessed. And
the only thing he ever said, Jack, you know what
he said, because he was not going to confess, he's
ay more weight, more weight, and they would put more
and more stones on top of his body until he
finally succumbed. And that's a very slow form of compressionist fixing.
It's torturous. You said it's a slow form, Joe. How
long would it take for you to die due to
(26:03):
compression asphyxia? How long did these victims suffer? I think
that this is this is the real horrific part of it.
And I have to go back to an example of say,
specific applied pressure. When you're talking about again in the
case of Cavvy Potito, where you're talking about where she
was throttled, where she had had hands wrapped around her throat,
(26:26):
and that is sustained pressure. Her death would have probably
have been a bit quicker because with this kind of uh,
compressionist phyxia, you might get a pause in there where
the weight shifts. And this is a very dynamic environment
because you've got people that are piling on top of
one another and they're rolling about and this sort of thing.
So you might have an opportunity in there where you're
(26:49):
being compressed and all of a sudden the weight shifts.
You can catch your breath again, but then the weight
shifts back, and this could this could take I don't know.
It could potentially take ten minutes for some of these
people to have died, and I think that that goes
to how torturous and laborious, uh this event would have been. UH.
And that's because it's it's you have a shifting of
(27:11):
weight that's going on because of the dynamics of the environment. Remember,
this is a frenzied crowd. People are running about, people
are screaming, people are rolling about. It's not like there's
constant pressure being applied specifically to them for the entire
duration until all life is gone. So it's very dynamic,
and I think that's gonna be very difficult for the
(27:32):
medical examiner if they have to get on the stand
in a case like this to actually give a specific
measure of I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body backs.
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.