"I fell and so did my boyfriend. And we could not get back up because people continued to fall on top of us," Kathleen said.
One person's dream concert was another couple's nightmare. Last night during a performance by blink 182 at the riot fest music festival in Humboldt Park, Kathleen, who is so shaken, she prefers not to be identified, says she and her boyfriend were trampled by the crowd as soon as the music started.
"The whole entire time I could hear him screaming, 'Get off of me, get off of me, I can't breathe,'" she said.
After several minutes Kathleen was able to get out, but her boyfriend Dan, spent at least 15 minutes on the ground. He spoke to ABC7 over the phone from his hospital bed at Stroger Hospital where he is recovering from a fractured neck. The reason they are speaking out, he says, is not because this happened, but because security personnel flat out refused to help when they requested it.
"I yelled to him, 'There are people on the ground. They need help now.' To which he responded quite loudly, 'There is nothing I can do about it,'" he said.
It is unclear how many people were injured during the concert. The Chicago Fire Department says they transported six people to local hospitals, but it appears at least a few others were taken by private ambulances staffing the event.
A spokesperson for Riot Fest Sunday night says none of the people transported were trampled. And they insist they have no record of what happened to Dan.
"We had two security guards with minor injuries, a couple of asthma attacks and one girl with an epileptic seizure. And that was the extent of the reports last night," said Riot Fest spokesperson Heather West. "I watched security personally taking people in distress out of the pit. I didn't see anyone in the pit begging for relief that was not getting it."
Earlier we spoke to others who were at the concert Saturday night. They were in the back and did not see the chaos up front.
"It was a lot of fun," said Sharelle Allamand. "They've been my favorite band for eight years. It was crazy."
"It was very congested toward the front," Dusty Baker said. "Even the guys in Blink were mentioning to take a couple of steps back, stuff like that."
