Heroic 18-year-old who tried to stop Travis Scott’s Astroworld reveals story behind viral video

A hero festival-goer who climbed on top of a camera platform to try to stop Travis Scott’s Astroworld has revealed he began “accepting” he was about to die after being caught in the deadly crush on Friday night.

Ayden Cruz, an 18-year-old varsity basketball player at Heights High School in Houston, spoke out on Tuesday after footage surfaced of him bravely scaling a ledge where a cameraman was filming the show and pleading with workers to try to help the people suffering in the crowd below.

The teenager had gone to the festival as part of a group of eight friends including Brianna Rodriguez, a 16-year-old student at Heights High School and aspiring dancer who was killed in the chaos.

Mr Cruz told ABC News he managed to climb onto the camera platform after pulling himself out from the surge.

Mr Cruz said it had taken all of his energy to stay alive in the chaos and, at one point, he believed he was going to die.

“I came to the point where I was accepting my death,” he said.

Mr Cruz revealed he saw his schoolmate Ms Rodriguez being swept away in the crush and screaming out “I can’t breathe” before she became one of the eight people killed in the tragedy.

Ms Rodriguez was found unresponsive in the crowd after becoming lost from her friends during the surge. Her family confirmed she was one of the victims at the weekend.

Mr Cruz told KHOU11 he, his girlfriend and friends had intentionally stayed close to the back of the general admission section because he knew from other concerts where Mr Scott performed that the crowd could get unruly.

However, he said they quickly learned that they were still in danger where they were located as people began to rush into the section he was in.

“It really wasn’t a mosh pit where we were. We were actually towards the back,” he said.

“And all of a sudden, people start pushing us from the back and we’re not actually able to open up anything. There was no space. People were actually freaking out. There was a girl behind us who was frantically screaming.”

He said the force of the crowd pushing them from behind caused some of them to fall down and that it was then that “fear has hit already my heart”.

He described pushing back and feeling like he was up against “a brick wall” of people and began screaming for help.

“It just becomes survival mode,” he told ABC13.

Then, Mr Cruz said he saw his girlfriend being pushed down beneath people and being lost in the crowd.

“After the people had fallen down, the crowd moves and I fall down on top of them, like, back on top of their bodies and I could hear the people in agony,” said Mr Cruz.

It was this point that he said he noticed Ms Rodriguez and could hear her crying out for help.

“As I am falling down, I see Brianna and Xavier, who was holding her, from Heights High School, fall on their backs and people falling on top of us, falling on my legs, falling on my stomach, falling on my face,” he said.

“I could hear her saying, ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe’ and I remember having so much weight on my body.”

The teenager described reaching a point where he thought his imminent death was inevitable.

“I just remember having so much weight on my body. I was pushing, I was fighting, and then I stopped because I was getting winded,” he told ABC.

“I was using all the energy I had left in me, and I came to the point where I was accepting my death,” he continued.

Meanwhile, he said the show went on.

“You’re, like, counting your last breaths. I went to a state where I accepted that I was going to die,” he told KHOU11.

“I didn’t really see a way out. I didn’t see a way out for me. Only God could help me in that scenario. And that’s exactly what happened.”

When there was a pause in the music, Mr Cruz said he spotted his girlfriend who had been helped to her feet by some fellow festival-goers.

He said he grabbed her and they managed to make their way out of the crush, recalling that his girlfriend was asking where Ms Rodriguez and their other friends were.

Mr Cruz said he wanted to go back to look for his friends but “time is ticking” and he made a split-second decision that he could better help by trying to alert officials and stop the show.

“There’s not enough time. There’s, like, time is ticking. Any decision I make is very critical. And so, I think the best way that we can save them is by making the show, like, come to an end, or stopping it,” he said.

The 18-year-old scaled the ladder onto the camera platform and was captured on several different smartphone footage trying to alert people to what was happening below.

“Stop the show! Stop the show!” he is heard screaming in the video.

A video from a different angle shows him shouting: “People are f***ing dying in there. I’m trying to save somebody’s life, that’s somebody’s kid.”

Another festival-goer, who has been identified as 22-year-old Seanna Faith McCarty, had also reached the platform and climbed on top.

“There’s someone dead in there! There is someone dead!” she screams desperately as she points to the crowd below.

The pair beg the camera operator to intervene but their efforts are in vain.

The operator tries to shoo them off stage and return to focusing on his camera, while a security guard also joins the platform and ushers them away.

Mr Cruz has been hailed a hero for his attempts to save others trapped in the crowd that day.

But he said the real heroes were everyone who helped other people in need during the tragic event and said he has just been left mourning the death of his friend Ms Rodriguez.

“I’m getting comments saying I’m a hero. I lost my friend. Like, she’s not here with us right now,” he told KHOU11.

He also said he doesn’t blame the cameraman for not intervening and shouldn’t be receiving threats over the incident.

“I am not saying that he had authority for these people because he didn’t, he didn’t,” he told ABC.

“He doesn’t have the mic, and I heard people giving him threats, but he doesn’t deserve that.”