A 22-year-old Indian American student caught up in the crowd that rushed the stage at a rap concert in Texas last week died of her injuries. The death of 22-year-old Bharti Shahani resulted in a rise in the death toll to nine.
Bharti Shahani, a student at Texas A&M University, was one among more than 300 people injured at the November 5 AstroWorld show as concertgoers rushed the stage as Scott came on. Eight other people have died earlier, including Pakistani American Danish Baig.
The family’s attorney, James Lassiter, announced the young Bharti’s death at a news conference on November 11 afternoon.
“Bharti was a shining star in the community,” Lassiter said. “She was a sister, a daughter, a high-achieving college student about to graduate from Texas A&M University with high, high grades.”
Her mother, Karishma Shahani, could not hold up her emotions. She pointed to her heart as she cried: “What happened to her? I want my baby back. I’m empty here,” as reported by The Associated Press.
Shahani had been studying electronics systems engineering. She attended the concert with her sister Namrata and her cousin Mohit Bellani. The three got separated when the crowd surged towards the stage.
“Once one person fell, people started toppling like dominos. It was like a sinkhole. People were falling on top of each other,” Bharti’s cousin Mohit 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.”
During the concert, about 50,000 people jammed into the open-air venue, dancing and singing along with Scott but finding themselves increasingly crushed against barriers, unable to move and breathe as the mass pressed toward the stage, reported Associated Press.
“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,” Bellani said.
After getting out of the stampede, both Bellani and Namrata Shahani could not find Bharti as they had lost their cellphones.
According to her cousin, Bharti reportedly suffered several heart attacks during the stampede and lost oxygen to her brain for lengthy periods. She was given CPR by first responders but had been in the ICU on a ventilator for the past five days at Houston Methodist Hospital and was declared brain dead.
“The doctors, they say the chances of survival are nothing, which I have not even spoken to my wife until now. We keep saying we’ll pray,” Bharti’s father Sunny told local television station KTRK. “They took us to her room, and she was bleeding and on a ventilator. Me and my wife were too shocked. We can’t even stand in the room, said Sunny.
“Bharti was a beautiful,” intelligent young woman set to graduate this year. Her life was only beginning, pray for it not to end. She was like a sister to me,” wrote Mohit Bellani on his Facebook page.
