You know how sometimes you read or hear a story and you just can't shake it?
I really like reading The New Yorker magazine. Every time I read it, I find an article about something I never thought about or completely new information on a topic I thought I knew a lot about.
I am currently reading the February 7 issue, which has a lot of spooky articles in it. One of the articles is called "Crush Point," which is about how crowds turn into stampedes. It is a fascinating look at crowd dynamics: people don't stampede; they get stampeded (an important difference when most incidents are blamed on unruly troublemakers). It's also so.freaking.sad.
Accompanying the article was a photo from a stampede that happened at a soccer match in England. Several people died. The photo was of a mesh enclosure people had been crushed against. The photo made me gasp. I won't describe it because it was too scary.
I've certainly been in lots of crowds and there have been times where I felt like I didn't have self-determination as to where I was going or how fast (the "Taste of Chicago" festival comes to mind). But I've never experienced anything truly frightening.
An expert in the article provided the following pointers if you're feeling unsafe in a crowd:
- Move with the crowd, but on a diagonal (so you can work your way to the edge)
- Keep your elbows bent (most people who die in stampedes die of asphyxiation because there is literally not enough room to take a breath)
- If you do go down, try and cover your head
I can't really get over the article or that photo.
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