(NewsReady.com) – After a 23-year-old woman died at a Taylor Swift concert in Brazil, her family is demanding answers about what went wrong. Other fans who were at the Rio de Janeiro event say organizers banned them from taking water into the venue. As temperatures climbed well into three figures, Swift called for the distribution of water, and she seemed to be suffering badly herself, too.
On November 17, Swift performed to an audience of almost 60,000 at Rio’s Estádio Olímpico Nilton Santos. This is an open-air venue, and the conditions were brutal. Brazil was in the midst of a heatwave at the time, and the heat index in the stadium reached 140°F. Firefighters say around a thousand people fainted at the event. One of them was psychology student Ana Clara Benevides Machado, who was in the front row of the crowd. Sadly, Ana also suffered cardiac arrest. She was resuscitated at the stadium and then taken to a local hospital, but she went into arrest again on the way and died not long after.
Now, Ana’s father, 53-year-old Weiny Machado, wants some answers. He’s calling for an investigation into the concert promoters and wants to know if it’s true that, as fans say, they weren’t allowed to bring bottles of water into the stadium. Videos from the concert show fans calling out for water and Swift pausing the concert to call on staff to distribute some. One video even shows the singer throwing a bottle to a fan.
Swift apparently didn’t know at the time that a fan had died, but temperatures were so high that she canceled the next day’s performance, saying in a statement that “the safety and well-being of my fans, fellow performers, and crew always has to come first.” On November 19, she released another statement, saying she was “overwhelmed” by Benevides’ death. Meanwhile, the promotion company Time4Fun said it was stepping up plans to provide water at future shows and pointed out that the ban on fans bringing in water is “a requirement made by public bodies.”
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