UPDATE: Community rallies behind dad hurt while crowd surfing during Welcome to Rockville
UPDATE, May 1: The injured crowd surfer has been identified as Chris Martin. Martin has a broken neck, his daughter said.
Martin initially thought it was an accident., but he knows believes he was thrown intentionally.
The family has set up a PayPal link to assist in his hospital expenses.
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A crowd surfer was seriously hurt during the Welcome to Rockville music festival.
Two Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department sources told Action News Jax an ambulance was called out on Saturday night.
Avenged Sevenfold paused their set after the man was injured.
“He stopped the show and said, 'Everybody just make way. A broken neck is no joke,'” said witness Joshua Campbell.
Witnesses told Action News Jax the crowd parted to make a path for the ambulance.
Multiple festival-goers said they heard a crowd surfer suffered a spinal cord injury.
Multiple sources tell @ActionNewsJax crowd surfer was seriously injured at #WelcomeToRockville on Saturday during Avenged Sevenfold's show. The band posted this photo on Facebook, showing multiple crowd surfers. Witnesses tell me the band paused set, announced "medical emergency" pic.twitter.com/dVREn0wYic
— Jenna Bourne (@jennabourneWTSP) April 30, 2018
“They had him on a stretcher. They had a brace around his neck, so he obviously had a neck injury,” said witness Shaun McGaughey.
Festival-goers may have gotten conflicting messages about crowd surfing at the event.
Woman posts on Reddit that she, husband & stranger intentionally "threw" crowd surfer into mosh pit at #WelcomeToRockville, high-fived before realizing he was seriously hurt. #JSO tells me no one reported this to police. More: https://t.co/VxFGjJJRbP @ActionNewsJax pic.twitter.com/QqnaiDR6sc
— Jenna Bourne (@jennabourneWTSP) May 1, 2018
The Welcome to Rockville website says crowd surfing is “prohibited,” but signs at the event said crowd surfing was “strongly discouraged.”
We're working to learn the condition of a crowd surfer who we're told was seriously hurt at #WelcomeToRockville. Crowd surfing is against the rules at the festival, but we found plenty of pics and videos showing people doing it anyway, right in front of security. @ActionNewsJax pic.twitter.com/RxkZZPsysS
— Jenna Bourne (@jennabourneWTSP) April 30, 2018
“It was pretty scary to see, basically because you have so many people crowd surfing. You’re all the time having to turn around to watch out for them,” said McGaughey.
A photo posted by Avenged Sevenfold on Facebook shows multiple people crowd surfing during their set, right in front of security guards.
Some festival-goers are saying the crowd surfer has a broken back, not a broken neck as originally thought.
#WelcomeToRockville website says crowd surfing is "prohibited," but signs at event said it's "strongly discouraged." We're working to find out how a crowd surfer is doing now after being badly injured on Saturday. Festival-goers tell me the crowd parted to let ambulance through pic.twitter.com/mxw2ragb8F
— Jenna Bourne (@jennabourneWTSP) April 30, 2018
Action News Jax will continue working to find out how he’s doing.
The concert organizer has not responded to Action News Jax’s questions.
“They had him on a stretcher. They had a brace around his neck." Live at 5:15 on CBS47 @ActionNewsJax, hear from festival-goers who were at #WelcomeToRockville when crowd surfer was badly injured. I'm told band paused set and the crowd parted so the ambulance could get through. pic.twitter.com/0FplHTEORb
— Jenna Bourne (@jennabourneWTSP) April 30, 2018
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