Sheila E. outraged by death at Carson festival: ‘This was horrible’
After a concertgoer died in the audience at a Carson music festival on Saturday, an artist is outraged the show continued while the deceased was still on-site.
On Saturday, at Carson’s Anderson Memorial Park, Shari Sanders of Altadena was found unconscious in the VIP section of the city’s annual jazz festival.
Dr. Dionne Leslie, a festival attendee, told KTLA that she performed CPR on Sanders before paramedics arrived. “[I was] just trying to breathe air into that woman and for her to look up in that moment, I just thought that she was going to make it,” Leslie told KTLA.
Sanders was later pronounced dead after what her family described as a heat-related illness. The cause of death is still under investigation.
Representatives for the city of Carson and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Carson station did not immediately return requests for information or comment.
Now Sheila E., a legendary percussionist and frontwoman who headlined the festival, has criticized promoters, she said, for allowing the show to continue before Sanders’ body was removed around 5 p.m.
“I would have never, never gotten onstage if I would have known that her body was still sitting there with her family surrounding her,” Sheila E. said in video statement after the festival. “Production, whoever, the city, the mayor was there. All of you guys should have stopped the festival. I’m sorry. You should have stopped the festival.”
The drummer said she was distressed by the paucity of water stations available, and feared the triple-digit heat was a risk for fans.
“We heard that … there was only one water station, which was unfortunate because there was just not enough water for everyone,” she said. “Carson, you guys have to do better. This was horrible. Horrible. And I’m so sorry that I played because I would not have gotten onstage knowing that she was still there.”