In a reddit thread yesterday, I came across the ‘crowd crush copypasta.’ It explains a bunch about crowd crushes and is a good read about a tragic topic. It’s 18+ but text only and not what I’d call gory or anything.
Thank you for that!
Sometimes reddit comes through.
I came here to mention the Madison crush as well. I was a student there at the time, although I wasn’t at the game. As I recall there were 12 “pulseless non-breathers” in the aftermath. Astonishingly, with immediate CPR there were no fatalities, although 6 people received critical injuries and 69 were transported to local hospitals.
Some victims were pinned against fences or walls, but others had simply fallen and been crushed under other fallen people. The design of the stadium at the time did nothing to prevent an avalanche of people stumbling downhill and crashing into a pile on the field.
Me too. I lived on a high floor in the Regent Apartments, with a view toward Camp Randall - and I remember seeing many ambulances streaming toward the stadium before the TV made any mention of what was happening.
Here’s a 2013 lookback, with footage and commentary from some of the victims and rescuers, including football players who helped extract some of the folks at the front of the pile:
An article about the investigation, NY Times gift link:
“For years, officials had known that Halloween weekends in Itaewon, a popular nightlife district in Seoul, attracted large crowds, warning internally that people could be “crushed to death.” . . . . the authorities ignored or missed the warnings, crucial chances to prevent a crowd crush in Itaewon on Oct. 29 that would kill 158 people and leave 196 injured. A New York Times analysis, based on witness accounts, investigators’ findings, parliamentary testimony and official documents released to lawmakers, provides troubling new details of the government’s lax approach to safety and the failures in its emergency response.”