Jacob Jurinek, 20, left, and Franco Patino, 21, both of Naperville, died during a Nov. 5 concert at the Astroworld Festival in Houston. (Family photos)

       The families of two Naperville college students killed at the Astroworld Music Festival in Houston have filed wrongful death lawsuits against rapper Travis Scott, entertainment company Live Nation and others affiliated with the event.

       Best friends Franco Patino, 21, and Jacob “Jake” Jurinek, 20, were among the 10 people who died at NRG Park Nov. 5 when a crowd surge during the show pushed concert-goers forward and crushed them, according to the lawsuits, filed Monday in Harris County Courts in Houston.

       Also named as defendants are the owners, operators, promoters, public relations representatives, concert organizers, and the owners and operators of NRG Park.

       Philip Corboy Jr., a partner with Chicago law firm Corboy & Demetrio, which filed the cases, said family members of are doing their best to try to make sense of a senseless situation.

       “A healthy, strong 20- or 21-year-old child goes off to a concert thinking he’s going to have some fun, and they’re going to be celebrating, in this case, Jake’s 21st birthday,” Corboy said. “Nobody expects to go to something as happy and joyous as concert where they end up dying. Nobody anticipates when they pay these high prices for these concert tickets that they have to worry about things like that.”

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       And no parent, he said, should worry their child will be kicked, stepped on, trampled, and crushed to death at a concert.

       The lawsuits contend the defendants, individually and collectively, assumed the duty and responsibility for ensuring safe concert operations.

       “However, Defendants egregiously failed in their duty to protect the health, safety, and lives of those in attendance at the concert, including but not limited to the failure to provide adequate security personnel to implement crowd control measures, proper barricades, and the failure to provide a sufficient amount of emergency medical support,” the suits said.

       As a result of those failures, Patino and Jurinek were fatally injured, the suits said.

       Jurinek was a junior at Southern Illinois University and a 2019 graduate of Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville.

       Patino graduated from Neuqua a year earlier and was a senior at the University of Dayton in Ohio, studying mechanical engineering technology major with a minor in human movement.

       subaker@tribpub.com

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