Astroworld death toll rises to nine as 22-year-old Bharti Shahani dies after five days in ICU

The death toll from the Astroworld Festival tragedy has now risen to nine after 22-year-old student Bharti Shahani has died after five days in ICU.

Ms Shahani’s family confirmed in a heartbreaking press conference on Thursday that she succumbed to her injuries on Wednesday night as they demanded “justice” for her and the other victims.

The family revealed that the Travis Scott show was the 22-year-old’s first ever trip to a festival and that her last words were asking her sister “are you okay” as they got pulled apart in the crowd surge.

Karishma Shahani, Ms Shahani’s mother, sobbed uncontrollably as she paid tribute to her daughter, crying out “give me my baby back” and saying she “won’t be able to live without her”.

“What happened to my blessing now,” she said. “I want my baby back. I won’t be able to live without her. It’s impossible.”

Karishma Shahani said her daughter “didn’t ask for anything” and was “always giving”.

“The first thing she ever asked for in her life was ‘mama can I go to this concert’?” she said.

She broke down in tears as she questioned: “Why didn’t I say no to her? Why? Because it was the first thing she asked me for herself.”

She added: “This wasn’t a concert because my baby didn’t come back.”

James Lassiter, the attorney for the Shahani family, confirmed that the 22-year-old victim was the woman seen being dropped from a stretcher in footage which has circulated online this week.

In the graphic footage, medics are seen trying to carry the unconscious woman out on a stretcher in the chaos before accidentally dropping the top of the gurney, causing her to land on her head.

The video has gone viral on social media as one of many glimpses into the chaos of the night.

Ms Shahani had been fighting for her life on a ventilator since Friday night after her brain was deprived of oxygen and she suffered multiple heart attacks in the deadly crush at Astroworld.

The computer programming student at Texas A&M University had gone to Mr Scott’s concert with her sister Namrata Shahani and her cousin Mohit Bellani but they all became separated from each other in the chaos.

While her sister and cousin both survived, Ms Shahani was rushed to hospital with medics performing CPR on her on the way.

She was declared brain dead on Wednesday before she passed away that night.

At the press briefing, Mr Bellani hit out at the Astroworld organisers who he said “suffocated Bharti” and said that the word “tragedy” does not represent “the act of pure brutality” that took place that night.

He said “there are no words to describe what really happened but that doesn’t seem right seems cliche and seems wrong”.

“There are words like nightmare, horror, barbarity and catastrophe,” he said.

“The word I see most people using is actually tragedy but I think the connotation behind the word tragedy implies that this was unavoidable.

“I think this is wrong. I think the word that should be used is atrocity – that this was 100 per cent avoidable that this was an act of pure brutality.”

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Mr Bellani slammed “the producer, the venue, the organizer and Live Nation” saying that if they “had done their jobs” his cousin would be alive.

“They suffocated us. They did this to Bharti. They suffocated Bharti,” he said.

“They did this to the nine-year-old boy in ICU fighting for his life. They did this to the other people who also lost their lives that night.”

Ms Shahani’s sister Namrata said it was both of the siblings’ first music festival and they “never imagined we wouldn’t both make it home that night”.

“Every day I wake up and wish that it was all a dream, a nightmare,” she said.

“It hurts more because she was not only my sister, she was my best friend.”

Ms Shahani’s father Sunny Shahani told reporters he and his wife had sat by her bedside 24/7 this week so “whatever time was left we could spend with her”.

“Please make sure she gets justice and I don’t want somebody else’s daughter to go like this,” he said.

“It was the wrong day and wrong time for her.”

Mr Shahani said that he and his wife had been in contact with his daughter while she was at the festival. They last heard that she was having a good time and was waiting for the next show at 9pm.

“She called around 3pm and said they were leaving,” he said.

“Around 6pm when they went in she called and said their phones may not work when we go inside and it may be too loud.

“At 7.45pm my wife text her ‘is it going good? And she text saying ‘yes it’s good we’re finished one concert and waiting for the next one at 9pm.”

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It was around 9pm that Mr Scott took to the stage for the headline performance and the crowd surged, crushing Ms Shahani in the masses.

“We thought our kids are enjoying the concert and enjoying all the music and all that,” said Mr Shahani.

At around 10.45pm, he said he got a call from his other daughter Namrata who told him she had lost her phone and was using a security guard’s phone.

She told her father “it’s too crowded and I’m trying to look for Bharti”, he said.

“Namrata was trying to call her sister but couldn’t get through to her.”

Mr Shahani said he managed to call Mr Bellani and then did a three-way call to connect Namrata and Mr Bellani so they could find each other.

He said he then told them to start looking for his other daughter while he and his wife traveled to NRG Stadium to try to find her.

He said he knew something was wrong because “she always picks up the phone right away”.

The family went from hospital to hospital searching for her before they finally found her in critical condition in hospital suffering heart failure and on a ventilator.

Mr Shahani paid tribute to his daughter as “the head of the family, she was a very nice girl, always calm, always listened and she had a bright future”.

He told how the family had moved to America for a better life.

Ms Shahni was born in New York before the family moved to Texas, said Sunny Shahani.

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Sunny said his daughter’s “dream” was first to become a chemical engineer so she went to A&M University, where she later changed her course to computer programming.

The family’s attorney Mr Lassiter described the festival as a “a senseless, gross disregard for human life”.

“The way that this festival was put on was a recipe for disaster that these people cooked up from the configuration,” he said.

“They ran so many stop signs on the way... they put profits over safety and as a result we have this tragedy.”

Ms Shahani’s death makes her the ninth victim of the festival, after eight other victims aged 14 to 27 were confirmed to have died Saturday morning.

A nine-year-old boy Ezra Blount is still fighting for his life in ICU after being trampled in the crush.

Mr Scott has offered to pay for the funerals of the victims while lawsuits continue to pile up against him and Live Nation and survivors and victims’ families demand answers over how the atrocity was able to happen.