Hail-injured Red Rocks concertgoers lash out at Denver-owned venue
Concertgoers continue to lash out at Denver-owned Red Rocks Amphitheatre in the wake of Wednesday night’s savage hail storm, with at least one of the attendees who was treated for a concussion at a hospital emergency room accusing the city of criminal negligence.
Kate Gould, 44, a former stadium emergency medical technician, alleged venue managers put financial interests ahead of safety when they allowed approximately 6,000 ticketholders to return to their seats after a delay due to lightning. The storm that blanketed the amphitheater with hail the size of golf balls injured nearly 100 people.
“It was completely traumatic, horrible,” Gould said. “They have to have better protocols. They could have told us sooner. They never should have let us back in.”
Criminal negligence is warranted, she said, “based on the fact that they knew there was a storm with the potential for damage. The weather service was aware of it. Red Rocks officials should have been aware of it as well.”
Caitlyn Bedenbender, 21, a Red Rocks regular who also attended the Louis Tomlinson concert on Wednesday night, said she felt “like they just care about money and keeping the show going no matter what — and that’s awful because people are seriously injured over this.”
“Online, people are talking about the incident and the majority of comments I see in response are calling everyone who was a victim to this storm stupid for staying, saying that this weather is normal here and that we all should’ve seen it coming,” Bedenbender said. “My only response to those voices is that if I, a concertgoer, should’ve seen this coming, Red Rocks should’ve seen it coming long before I did.”
Denver officials responsible for city-owned venues on Friday were mum, not responding to queries. On Thursday, officials said city officials are reviewing what happened Wednesday night and what could be done at Red Rocks, but that possible exposure to storms is “the nature of outdoor events.”
Brian Kitts, a spokesman for Denver Arts & Venues, called the hail storm a “once in a lifetime” event and said venue managers rely on a contractor to tell them when the weather is too dangerous for concerts to continue.
“It is a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ thing with any of these weather situations,” he said. “Our response was immediate, as soon as they said this is serious… Venue managers are not meteorologists. We rely on that type of advice.”
“Blood flowing down her face”
Gould recounted the events that led her, and her 18-year-old daughter back into the venue to hear the former One Direction member sing after that initial 8:07 p.m. delay due to lightning. It didn’t feel right, still seeing dark clouds, hearing thunder, she said.
She felt trepidation when Red Rocks officials at 8:35 p.m. announced an all-clear, Gould said — but trusted them.
“They told us to go back in. As we were going, I was like, ‘What the hell, the sky was black, why are we being sent back in?’ Then I was like, ‘Maybe the storm passed through and that is why.’ I was like, ‘They must know what they are doing,’” she said in an interview Friday morning.
She texted photos of the sky to her husband, Stephen Farrell, 52, back at their home in Conifer, just as he was checking the latest National Weather Service severe storm bulletins and preparing to text her and advise her to get out.
Around 9:30 p.m., Red Rocks officials flashed a red evacuation warning on a display screen advising concertgoers to evacuate again to their vehicles immediately.
She and Faith bolted. It was pandemonium, white hail hammering like marbles and golf balls — “the hail equivalent of a tsunami,” she said — with seemingly no visibility and no shelter.
“I was screaming to her to get on the ground. There are already people huddled into a big pile… I jumped on top of her,” Gould said. That’s when she sustained the concussion. “
The concert was officially postponed at 10:25 p.m.
When they eventually made their way to a parking area, the boyfriend of one of Faith’s friends pulled her into his vehicle and they headed for the St. Anthony Hospital emergency room. At the ER, she saw “at least 20” other wet people who had come from Red Rocks, she said.
“There was a girl, I thought it was bad hair dye, it was blood. Her whole scalp was bloody. She had blood flowing down her face. There were people with bruises all over their arms. There were people crying, very upset. Everyone was drenched. They looked like cold, wet, scared injured rats,” Gould said.
On Friday, she and her husband were trying to find out how to file a criminal negligence claim that they thought might develop into a class action. But a Denver Police Department dispatcher said she could not take a police report, Farrell said.
Another call, to the city attorney’s office, led to a man “who tried to dissuade me” citing the “sovereign immunity” that can shield governments from liability when things go wrong.
“Denver put money over human beings. This is about humanity,” Farrell said. “This was all about money… My goal is to end up in court. Somebody needs to accept responsibility.”
In 2014, a lawsuit led to a $39 million settlement with concert promoter Live Nation and the country duo Sugarland after a powerful storm hit the Indiana State Fair, with wind gusting at speeds up to 70 mph, leading to a stage collapse that killed seven people and injured dozens more.
“Felt like I was in a war zone”
Bedenbender said she has enjoyed Red Rocks shows in driving rain and inclement weather plenty of times.
“That’s why the whole time I was thinking if we were in any danger of actually getting hurt, they would let us know and tell us to get out of there,” she said. “I thought, worst case scenario, we were going to be really wet when we left.”
Bedenbender took her three teenage cousins for their first Red Rocks experience Wednesday evening and said she feels horrible that they left traumatized from being battered by a hail storm the venue failed to properly warn concertgoers about.
The weather seemed fine when the opening acts began, Bedenbender said.
The venue told the audience about the two lightning-related delays, but eventually gave an all-clear. People started filing back into the venue, but soon after, someone made an announcement that they strongly urged people to take shelter from an incoming storm.
Bedenbender said hail never was specifically mentioned.
Moments later — not enough time to seek shelter, Bedenbender said — large chunks of hail began raining down on audience members who were panicking and fleeing.
Bedenbender became separated from two of her cousins in the chaos but pulled the third against a wall and held her denim jacket above their heads to try to act as a makeshift umbrella.
“The back of my head, my hands, arms, back and legs felt like they were being pelted by sharp rocks, and young girls were screaming out in agony,” she said. “I truly felt like I was in a war zone with all the banging from the hail and screaming.”
After a few minutes, Bedenbender said she saw people piling into a nearby storage closet.
“When we reached the door, the closet was packed with people crying, bleeding and trying to get ahold of the groups that they were separated from,” she said.
Bedenbender and her cousin rode out the rest of the storm in the storage closet and ended up locating their two cousins who had huddled under a concession stand.
She thought her fingers were broken, but they ended up being badly bruised and swollen along with her back, arms and head.
While Bedenbender said she understands that while the venue can’t control the weather, the aftermath of injuries could have been prevented if Red Rocks would have made the right call to cancel the show earlier and let people know about the hail storm.
Going forward, Bedenbender said she hopes to see additional shelter put in place at Red Rocks so people have a place to go.
“I am just overall very disappointed in how this was handled,” she said.
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Source: The Denver Post
