Post Malone<\/a> when he walked by. It was awesome.<\/p>\n\n\tIn 2021, my stepmom worked for the Astros as VP of Event Sales and Operations. Travis has a softball tournament every year at their stadium, so someone gave us 10 tickets for the Astroworld Festival. We were so excited. I came home for the weekend from the University of Arkansas. When I got in that Friday, my sister and I went to five or six thrift shops looking for cool merch to wear. She actually bought me the white shirt I wore to the concert. We went back to her apartment in Houston to go to bed early, and she mentioned she was nervous. She battled claustrophobia, but I told her we\u2019d be fine. After being trapped inside for two years with COVID shutdowns, everyone was really pumped to get out and do something.<\/p>\n
\n\tOne of her friends actually drove us the next day. When we walked in, it was all these really big props, like the massive Travis Scott head you walk through. It was really, really cool.<\/p>\n
\n\tAt the end of Lil Baby\u2019s set, we decided to walk over to the other stage to get a good spot for Travis. The countdown clock still had about an hour and 30 minutes on it. We were just relaxing, hanging out, and talking. Around the 30-minute mark, you could feel it getting packed and pressured. People were throwing toilet paper rolls and full beer cans. The tension was rising, but it wasn\u2019t anything scary at first, until the crowd started pushing forward from every direction. We were right in the middle of the front section, basically.<\/p>\n\n\n
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\n\tAs the countdown clock got closer to Travis Scott coming on, the crowd began rushing and pressing forward toward the stage. When Travis came on and the pyrotechnics shot up from the front of the stage, I could feel the heat. It was like being in a sauna. It was so hot. I remember thinking I could let my body go limp, and I would still stay up. Then it felt like everyone pushed back, really hard, and people started falling. My sister fell, and I was trying to pick her up, but I couldn\u2019t get her off the ground. People were on top of each other. Then another push happened, and I lost her. <\/p>\n
\n\tI was trying to shove my way through the crowd, but it was just chaos. Groups of people were all falling, like dominoes. You couldn\u2019t do anything. As I was pulling my leg out at one point, my shoe got caught and came off. When I finally got to the edge, I was walking around with only my sock on one foot. I didn\u2019t know where anyone went. I didn\u2019t know if they got out, too. I randomly found two people from our group, Kyle and Garrett, and texted my sister, but no texts were going through. There was no cell reception. We could tell people were getting more frantic. I was getting more worried that something bad had happened to Madison, but my mind wasn\u2019t going to death. Then we started seeing people who were injured. I remember seeing a person come out on a stretcher, and they dropped her on her head. I was freaking out a little bit at this point. We were looking around, trying to find her and saw ambulances. We were like, \u201cWhat is going on?\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tMy parents started calling our phones frantically, saying they received a call from one of Madison\u2019s friends saying they heard Madison was hurt. We were going to the medical tents, describing what she looked like, but we couldn\u2019t find her. We were being pushed out by security when we tried to ask if she was in the tents.<\/p>\n\n\n
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\n\tEventually, I got a call from my mom, who said Madison was at the hospital. Now I\u2019m really freaking out. I just remember being in the car and praying, \u201cPlease don\u2019t be dead. Please don\u2019t be dead.\u201d I was so nervous.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhen we walked into the hospital, I saw my mom crying. She said Madison didn\u2019t make it. I couldn\u2019t believe it. Then I heard my dad just wailing. I remember feeling all this weight coming down on me, like I was drowning. I couldn\u2019t breathe, I couldn\u2019t think. It was a super intense panic attack. I felt like I was going to die myself.<\/p>\n
\n\tMy mom asked if I wanted to see Madison. I remember just apologizing a million times to her. We were there for a while, but eventually, we had to leave. I leaned down and kissed her on her forehead and said goodbye for the last time. Her body was so cold. It was really hard to leave her. It was devastating.<\/p>\n
\n\tI went home with my dad, basically in silence. It felt like a bad dream. I kept thinking I was going to wake up, and she was going to call me to let me gossip about my life in college. She was the person I went to with everything. I didn\u2019t just lose my sister; I lost my person and my best friend.<\/p>\n
\n\tI feel like I sat on the same part of our couch for three days straight. I barely slept or ate. I felt so guilty, like it was all my fault.<\/p>\n