Indiana State Fair Collapse Victims, Heroes and Emotions Dominate This Week’s Hottest Stories

McCreery's performance at LP Field during the CMA Music Festival was a highlight of ABC's coverage Sunday night. Fans got to watch both him and Lauren Alaina shake off nervousness and an urge to nap throughout their multi-day Nashville schedule. Once the familiar opening chords to 'Your Man' were strummed few in the crowd -- or watching on television -- doubted that a duet was soon to follow.

Katie Couric, Robin Roberts and Sheryl Crow are just a few of the celebrities that make cameos in this new emotional video from Martina McBride. Breast cancer is thread that joins these women together, and along with many other non-celeb survivors, they share an inspiring story of perseverance. McBride's lyrics are the wind that allows this video to soar.

Maggie Mullin quickly became the face of the Indiana State Fair tragedy. Her mother was helpless as Maggie stood just a few feet away, her arm a mess of blood and muscle. The 3-year-old survived however and later in the week we learned the story of the dozen or so heroes who got her to safety.

By Monday morning we began to learn the names and stories of the five people killed in Saturday night's stage collapse. One was looking forward to beginning her first year as a school teacher. Another aspired to go into the medical field. Two more were working that night. Fair workers say one pushed people to safety as his last act. A sixth person died Friday morning. Jennifer Haskell was best friends with 23-year-old Alina Bigjohny.

Stevie Ray Rooney was the Rascal Flatts' guitarist's 15-year-old, 170 pound French Mastiff. In a tweet, Rooney announced he and his wife had to say goodbye to the pup. Fans and Taste of Country readers offered dozens of heart-felt condolences. There's no-doubt his roll in the Flatts Fest tour will be a bit more somber for a few weeks.

Some aggressive Googling turned up a demo for a song called 'Clear as Day' by songwriter Phil O'Donnell. McCreery had raved about a song by the same name, written by ... Phil O'Donnell. While we can't say for sure that the song is the same ast McCreery's title-track, the fact that the site has been removed speaks volumes.

Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush did well to deflect attention from themselves, but we soon learned how close the duo and their band came to being on stage during the fatal stage collapse. The duo's tour manager made a last second decision that no-doubt proved to be life saving. For the first time we got a glimpse at what Sugarland was going through post-accident.

As news of the Indiana State Fair tragedy began to circulate, country stars took to their social networking pages to express sympathy and support for the victims and musicians involved. Reba McEntire may have summed it up best when she tweeted, "What happened in Indianapolis tonight is what promoters, artists, crews and fans pray never happens."

The band's first response let fans know they were all right, but more importantly expressed how devastated they were for fans and fair employees who were caught up in the accident. This second story on the Indiana State Fair tragedy shed a few more details on what happened, and included the first video footage of the collapse.

This was the first Taste of Country report on what had happened at the Indiana State Fair. At this time, details were still hard to gather, but Sugarland took to Twitter to tell fans to pray for those injured and killed. In the end it looks like it was a rogue 70 mph gust of wind that took the rigging down, but this story seems far from finished.