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Friday, March 29, 2024

Musicians’ near miss at Texas festival

Several Norwegian musicians narrowly avoided injury when a car ploughed into a crowd of people at the South by Southwest (SXSW) music industry festival in Austin, Texas. A man and a woman were killed and about 23 others were injured when the allegedly drunk driver crashed through a barricade and into a crowd outside a club.

Five people were taken to hospital with life threatening injuries, and another five were hospitalized but are not critical, reported Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK). Local media said the driver, who was reportedly drunk, fled from police after he’d been stopped at a petrol station. He drove against traffic down a one-way street and hit two riders on a scooter before crashing through the barricade outside the club, hitting several people. It happened just after midnight local time, and police arrested the man at the scene.

Norwegian musician Magdi Omar Ytreeide Abdelmaguid from the band Karpe Diem and his wife Oda were just metres from the crash. He wrote on Facebook that he wasn’t sure if the news of the police chase had reached Norway, but they were both okay. “Held onto life with maybe 1.5 metres,” he wrote.

“I was with some friends when I heard an explosion like a gun going off, and when I turned people were flying through the air,” musician Kim Nordbæk told newspaper VG. “It was a macabre sight. It was like a battlefield where people lay everywhere with serious injuries and bleeding.”

Aftenposten journalist Joacim Lund took to Facebook and Twitter to say he’d left the scene right before the accident, and was uninjured.

newsinenglish.no staff

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