DALLAS — Quentin Sauvage and his younger brother were excited to go on a brothers' trip to the Astroworld Festival this past weekend. They had been planning it for months and Quentin's brother had surprised him with tickets.
What was supposed to be a fun moment turned into tragedy.
"There's no way to describe the feeling that you have to accept that you might die," said Quentin.
The music festival, headlined by entertainer Travis Scott, ended in eight deaths and left over a hundred people injured.
Sauvage tells WFAA the crowds were surging and it was "getting tight" about 20 minutes before Travis Scott arrived on stage. And then, as soon as Scott started his set the crowds really started pushing and trampling each other.
Quentin and his younger brother, who wished not to be named, were 40 feet from the stage. They were pushed, squeezed, trampled and his brother collapsed into the pile of concert-goers.
"I was trying to get my brother up and I was pulling him as hard as I could but there were so many bodies and people on top of each other that he wasn't budging," said Quentin.
According to officials in Houston, there were an estimated 50,000 people in attendance. Safety consultant John Matthews, who is with Community Safety Institute, says handling a crowd that size is about pre-planning and putting in fixed barriers.
"You can subdivide that area to avoid those surges. I don't think they had a plan in place. I don't think they were prepared for it," said Matthews.
Matthews tells WFAA that being fully prepared for a crowd that size requires intense planning, plenty of personnel and lots of money.
Danish Baig is one of the eight victims. His funeral was held in Colleyville over the weekend and his family says he died trying to save his fiancée.
"This is not how you handle things. This is not how you do it. You go to a concert to have fun. You don't go to a concert to die," cried Danish's brother.
Quentin says he called 9-1-1 seven times with no response. He tells WFAA he screamed at event staff multiple times to "Stop the show!"
He believes the music may have deafened the cries for help. Quentin says ultimately his focus was on getting his brother out of the pile. But what really irked him is the perceived lack of care from the event staff who were alerted to what was going on.
"Word for word the event staff looked me in the eye and said, 'It's a mosh pit, what do you expect?' I was shocked," recalled Sauvage.
The investigation hopes to answer whether there was adequate security and staff. The investigation will also look into what entertainer Travis Scott did or did not do in those moments. Witnesses tell WFAA he started and stopped a couple of times in an attempt to calm the crowds.
"The crowd is listening to you. They're playing off you," said Matthews, describing the role the artist often plays in mitigating the situation.
Quentin called it luck but after 20 minutes he was able to pull his brother up and out. It took four pain-staking attempts. They slowly made their way out and climbed a gate to safety with very minor injuries.
But they are very bruised mentally and emotionally and fully understand so many other families are dealing with worse.
Quentin still hears the cries and screams for help. He did help several people from where he stood and in one instance the person he helped would soon "run me over" forcing Quentin to fall into the pile of scattered concert-goers.
He wished he could have done more in the moment but knows there were limited options.
"This whole thing could have been avoided," said Sauvage.