An autopsy report has revealed that a young woman who died from heat exhaustion after she fell sick at a Taylor Swift concert in Brazil.
Ana Benevides, 23, went into cardiac arrest while Swift was singing her second song of the night, Cruel Summer, at the first show of ‘The Eras Tour’ in Rio de Janeiro on November 17, where temperatures in the city reached 105F.
The university student was rushed from Nilton Santos Stadium to a local hospital, where she later died.
The Rio de Janeiro Forensic Medical Institute’s postmortem examination showed the Benevides was exposed to extreme heat.
Ana Benevides (pictured) died from heat exhaustion after she fell sick at a Taylor Swift concert in Rio de Janeiro on November 17. The autopsy report showed that her exposure to extreme heat sent her into cardiac arrest and severely damaged her lungs
Taylor Swift had to reschedule the second show of ‘The Eras Tour’ in Rio de Janeiro because of extreme temperatures after a fan died after fainting at her first concert in the city on November 17
Taylor Swift fans used umbrellas to shield themselves from the extreme heat while awaiting to enter the concert venue
The exposure to the heat sent the woman into a cardiovascular shock and damaged her lungs, eventually causing her death.
The report also showed that Benevides died from alveolar hemorrhage, a rupture to the blood vessels that supply the lungs, and polyvisceral congestion, paralysis of the lungs produced by the extreme heat.
It also said she did not have pre-existing conditions or substance abuse that could have led to her death.
Benevides was watching the concert from the first two with her friends when she fainted.
Ana Benevides went into cardiac arrest twice and died at a Rio de Janeiro hospital after falling ill at a Taylor Swift concert in Rio de Janeiro on November 17
Ana Benevides poses with one her friends moments before she fell sick due to extreme heat at Taylor Swift concert and died at a hospital
She was resuscitated after 40 minutes and went into cardiac arrest in an ambulance. Doctors tended to Benevides and were unable to save her life.
Fans at the show were exposed to temperatures – the heat index topped 140F at Nilton Santos Stadium, where security prohibited them from bringing in their own water.
Firefighters at the concert reported that at least 1,000 fans fainted because of the heat.
Civil Police chief Juliana Almeida told Brazilian news outlet G1 that a hearing will be held with T4F, the concert organizer, to ‘find out what measures they took on the day’ Benevides died.
‘Given what the report pointed out and the other steps that we will carry out, the hearings could lead to indictment for manslaughter,’ she said.
The second concert scheduled on November 18 was postponed hours before it was set to start and was moved to November 20 because of the extreme temperatures.
‘The safety and well-being of my fans, fellow performers, and crew has to and always will come first,’ Swift would write on one of her social media channels.
Swift invited Benevides’ family and friends to a show in São Paulo on November 26.
A video posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, showed the family and friends of the late fan at the show, all of whom were wearing white t-shirts with Machado’s face on it.
Swift spent time with the family after the show and posed for a group shot with the singer as well.