It seems awfully unlikely. Urban hypothermia is common, but mass casualties from the cold tend to be in less controlled incidents/environments, such as maritime disasters or large wilderness parties.
But the idea is an intriguing one. Let’s ponder for a bit.
To produce a stadium MCI, we would need a combination of factors; I suspect the two most important would be: the temperature falling unusually quickly and becoming far colder than expected. Not impossible.
Alcohol sets one up for hypothermia in about five different ways, so let’s also posit really good beer sales.
Now, could the number of intoxicated individuals combine with a number of people disoriented from mild hypothermia to cause confusion and disorder among those who attempt to evacuate when the mercury plummets?
Jammed exits, slow-moving lines, inadequately dressed people stuck standing in place. Crowds that hinder emergency personnel from reaching the worst affected.
Children, elderly people, folks with pre-existing medical problems are all at greater risk. How many of these might be in the stadium? Surely enough to help reach MCI numbers, no?
And what about the wide expanse of parking lot to be navigated? The number of vehicles that won’t start? Do we count deaths outside the stadium proper? I can see the parking areas being poorly patrolled so that many who are already mildly hypothermic are stuck in their cars to grow colder and colder before being found.
So, yeah, unlikely, but not totally impossible, I think.
It’s not all that uncommon to see a topless couple of idjits in the stands on TV of a cold playoff game; typically wearing their teams colors on their chest & the appropriate letters or numbers; one guy with a giant K & the other with a giant C or a 1 & a 5. I’m guessing they’re not doing that for just 30 seconds & I’m also guessing there’s some alcohol in their system, which is only going to exacerbate hypothermia.
Surely they’re colder topless in 32° than me appropriately dressed for 6° yet I’ve never heard of one of them dying.
I was also thinking, throw in a sudden snowsquall, that impairs vehicle and foot traffic. People who are close to hypothermia who then get caught in a snowstorm would succumb pretty quickly. This would also impair emergency response.
I’m a runner; the rule of thumb when running is you dress for being outside for 10-15°, so if it’s 40°, dress to walk/stand around as if it were 53°. I doubt they’re producing as much body heat as a runner, so maybe 5° from their antics.
Being in water saps body heat 25x faster than in comparable air. I’m a long time member of the Polar Bear club; even won the ‘last out’ award before, & have also made snow angels in just a bathing suit after coming out of the water a couple of times but that’s relatively minutes of being well underdressed & I didn’t suffer any effects other than being a bit uncomfortably cold.
I was the one who commented in the weekly NFL thread on the cold weather in KC being a risk for fans. Just to be clear, I was thinking about frostbite, not deaths. At the expected temperatures and wind for the game, it would take less than 30 minutes for exposed skin to get frostbite.
Most of the people will be dressed appropriately, and it won’t be as bad in practice because there will be some crowd-generated heat and shelter from the wind. But I still bet there will be a few cases of frostbite.
I recall going to an Edmonton Eskimos’ (as they were then) game in mid/late October. Winter hit during the game, temps dropped like crazy, and by the end, they were shovelling snow off the yard lines.
I stuck around until the end of the game, but the cold made things uncomfortable. If, at the start of the game, it had been what it was at the end, I probably wouldn’t have gone to the game at all, cost of the ticket be damned.
I should look up the specific journal entry and post it verbatim, but the Lewis & Clark expedition spent their first winter in 1805 at Ft. Mandan, in what is now North Dakota, Lewis observed that the ambient air temperature was -25° F. below zero, and the local Mandans adults and children were playing a game out on the prairie, basically what we would call LaCrosse today, and everyone was completely naked. Lewis wrote he couldn’t believe the human organism could do this.
Apparently dozens of people who attended last Sunday’s Dolphins/Chiefs game, referenced in the OP, ended up with hypothermia, and a few even had frostbite.
CNN article states 69 calls for service & “close to 50% … were for hypothermia symptoms” per KCFD, or just under three dozen people treated & only 15 taken to the hospital for hypothermia & three for frostbite. -9° with a wind chill of -28° had some go down but no one dying so it’s gotta be colder than than for OPs hundreds or even thousands dying.
I had a friend who used to live in Northern Canada - not only did he go running in -30, -40 (just wear a neck warmer and breathe through it); he told the story of a few guys who were at a party one night, decided to go cross country 4-wheeling in their jeep along some logging roads. They wore what they wore to a party, some windbreakers and sneakers. (No need to dress heavily for the cold, you just run to and from a warm car.)
They got a flat tire. The had no spare. Eventually they ran out of gas. Two decided to walk to town, two stayed with the vehicle - they tried burning a tire to keep warm. They found one person trying to climb the river bank into town, frozen to death. They other, after what must have been a half hour walk or more in minimal protection, was seen wandering through town, dazed and incoherent, by a local taxi driver at about 3AM and taken to the hospital. He lost a few toes and fingertips. The two by the vehicle were then found dead of hypothermia, because it took a while for the survivor to wake up and explain what happened.
The moral of the story - activity helps. Don’t be stupid. Dress for the weather.
He said people snowmobile there in open air, -30 or lower, at 40mph or so. They are fine… they dress for it. They die if they are stranded for hours and hours by a breakdown, or worse, go through the ice. Alway snowmobile with some buddies and multiple machines.
Cold and wet is brutal. I suspect you are correct, I think statistically hypothermia fatalities are much more common above freezing temperatures than below freezing. Staying dry is key.
the Research Medical Center in Missouri said that some of the people who attended the game have indeed undergone amputations…The statement indicates that more amputations are expected in the next 2-4 weeks as “injuries evolve.”
I wonder if any of those suffering from frostbite/amputations were children? If so that would be child abuse/neglect and the people who took them to the game should be charged.