Bharti Shahani, a 22-year-old Texas A&M student who was critically injured during the crowd surge while Travis Scott performed at his Astroworld Festival last Friday, has died. Shahani is now the ninth fatality from the deadly surge at NRG Park in Houston, TX.
Bharti’s family and her lawyer confirmed her death at a press conference on Thursday.
“She was like an angel for us,” Shahani’s father, Bhagu “Sunny” Shahani, said during the press conference. “She was the head of the family, she was a very nice girl. Always calm, always listened. She had a bright future. Only thing I’ll request, to the Houstonians, to please, please make sure that she gets justice. And I don’t want somebody else’s daughter to go like this.”
Houston’s ABC affiliate reported on Tuesday that Bharti showed no signs of brain activity and was placed on a ventilator after she was caught in the stampede. She reportedly suffered multiple heart attacks, with her cousin, Mohit Bellani, saying at the time, “I think she lost oxygen for 10 minutes one time and seven minutes at another time. So her brain stem was swollen to like 90 percent almost.”
She attended the concert with Bellani and her sister, Namrata Shahani. The three lost each other during Scott’s set when the surge began, and after losing their phones were unable to find Bharti, “Once we let go of her hand, the next time we saw her, we were in the ER,” Namrata said.
Sunny said that Bharti took up the role of mother for the family when her mom and dad had to devote themselves full-time to the family clothing business. She prepared to graduate from Texas A&M in spring 2022 with a degree in electronics system engineering, which she planned to use in order to help the Shahani family business operate online retail.
“Bharti is love,” her mother, Karishma Shahani, said through tears. “Always thinking about everybody. Friends, parents, family, my daughter…She is love. Only giving.”
After being rushed from the festival to a nearby hospital, Bharti remained on a ventilator for seven days. She died on Wednesday at 6:50 p.m., surrounded by her family who had been with her since she arrived at the hospital, according to Sunny. The Shahanis have set up a GoFundMe for Bharti’s medical costs and other expenses.
“She meant everything to me,” Namrata said of her sister. “We were always together, I’ve never known what it feels like to be without her. She was always someone I could look up to. When things got hard, I always told her, and she always helped me out. She felt like a second mother to me.”
Astroworld Festival update: Texas A&M student Bharti Shahani dies from her injuries
[Video: KHOU 11]
[H/T Rolling Stone]
The post Bharti Shahani, Critically Wounded Astroworld Attendee, Dead At 22 appeared first on L4LM.
