Astroworld medic slams understaffed, undertrained EMS rumors on TikTok

By Rachel Engel

HOUSTON — In a series of posts on the popular social media app TikTok, a man who said he worked the Astroworld festival as a paramedic detailed his account of the incident that left eight concertgoers dead and hundreds injured.

In three videos posted under the username @remi.rich, the man said he and his partner were called for backup by the stage and were inundated with people asking for help. During one of his trips back into the crowd with supplies, he came across other solo EMS providers struggling to adequately treat patients.

“On my hike back into the crowd with my crash bag, at the halfway point, I find another medic performing CPR,” he said. “I get down and I’m like, ‘Hey dude, where’s your partner, what’s going on?’ and he’s like, ‘I don’t know man, I just saw this person with no pulse and no breathing, and I just started CPR, I don’t know how I’m going to get them out.’”

https://www.tiktok.com/@remi.rich/video/7028102262551743790?lang=en&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1 https://www.tiktok.com/@remi.rich/video/7028103226465455407?lang=en&is_copy_url=0&is_from_webapp=v1&sender_device=pc&sender_web_id=7028981085737338373 https://www.tiktok.com/@remi.rich/video/7028103850921954607?lang=en&is_copy_url=0&is_from_webapp=v1&sender_device=pc&sender_web_id=7028981085737338373

The man said he promised to return and help the paramedic after treating his original victim. After he continued towards his patient, he came across a third provider performing solo CPR.

“I’m like, ‘What’s happening, where’s your partner?’ and they’re like, ‘They’re taking care of another unconscious person, I need to do one-man CPR, I don’t know how I’m getting this person out of here,’” @remi.rich said in the video. “Here I am presented with three different EMS personnel providing one-man CPR on three different patients, completely isolated from each other, no backboard, no way of getting out.”

In a later video, @remi.rich blamed an unruly, oblivious crowd.

“So many people are going down, so many are getting injured. My observations were that there was zero crowd etiquette at all,” he said. “They just wanted to get closer to the show, closer to Travis Scott, and do their thing. They didn’t give a single damn about anyone around them. It was an absolute shit show.”

He also dismissed the idea that medical staff were unprepared for the event.

“A lot of these rumors going around that EMS weren’t trained enough, they were understaffed – every EMT in the field I saw, were not new to the job, nor were they EMRs,” he said. “Everyone in the med tent was the absolute A-team. In the medical tent they had two doctors, a SWAT physician, a ton of SWAT medics, seasoned paramedics and then basics. If you could draw an A-team from Houston that aren’t doctors, they were there.”