Okay, so a couple of things:
1. This video is very good in terms of giving tips on how to survive this type of thing. I recently covered the Itaewon Halloween crush from two years ago and one of the survivors specifically cited being told to stand in a boxer’s stance as the thing that saved her life.
2. Please keep in mind that many times crushes have occurred due to people trying to escape a fire and piling up in the doorway (the Beverly Hills Supper Club in 1977, the Station club in 2003) or against an obstruction (the Hartford circus fire in 1944). When entering a new place, make sure to make a quick check of the closest exit that is not the main point of entrance specifically, but other lesser-used exits as well. People in crush situations often end up crushing in that place because it’s the way they came in, regardless of other exits (the Station, the Shiloh Baptist Church crush, Itaewon in part). Make sure you spot more than one exit, just in case one is blocked or locked. (You never know, it might be accidental, it might be intentional on the part of the owners. Better safe than sorry.)
Worst case scenario - go to the kitchen, if the club you’re in has one. Kitchen staff need to enter and exit through their own door in most places so there will be an exit there that not everyone thinks to look for.
3. Hillsborough is *incredibly* frustrating to learn about, in that it’s a genuine conspiracy by the police against Liverpool fans from almost literally minute one. It took around thirty years for the victims and the families to finally have the true version be told, and no one’s gone to jail for it. Which sucks, because you will wish David Duckenfield spent a good long while behind bars. (There’s also one incredibly punchable South Yorkshire police spokesperson you will want to kick in his teeth. He says the thing about horses. You’ll know it when you hear it.)
4. So God knows I can be terrible about self-promotion, but I have done a few episodes on crushes, if anyone wants to listen:
Episode 51: The Shiloh Baptist Church crush: In 1902, Booker T. Washington was speaking to a packed church when someone yelled “Fight!”. Everyone thought they yelled fire and ran for the front doors of the church, which went out onto a steep set of steps. People tumbled into a big piled like dominos.
Part one and part two of the Itaewon Halloween crush: People are out all dressed up for Halloween in the Seoul neighborhood after two years of pandemic. So many people, and very, very few cops to control the crowd. Hundreds of people ended up tumbling down in a narrow alley and being crushed to death only inches from safety.
Episode 229: The Collinwood school fire: A Cleveland-area school catches fire from the basement up in 1908. The exterior is brick and steel, but the interior is almost entirely made of wood. Kids rush to the two main exits, but one is blocked and the other is starting to become so - with other students.
Episode 176: The Italian Hall disaster: Calumet, Michigan, 1913. The families of copper miners who’ve been on strike are at the hall on the second floor to celebrate Christmas. Again, someone supposedly yells “Fire!”. The stairway down to the front is far too narrow, and when people go to escape down it, they fall one on top of the other.
Episode 163: The Colectiv nightclub fire: in Bucharest, Romania in 2015, people gathered at Colectiv for a Goodbye to Gravity concert. Then what’s happened a lot of this podcast happens - the band sets off pyro, the club’s soundproofing catches fire. The exits clogged with people and survivors struggled to climb over them. (There’s also a fantastic Oscar-nominated documentary on all the scandals that happened after/as a result of the fire called “Collective” that I can’t recommend enough.)
Episode 107: The Beverly Hills Supper Club fire: It’s May 1977, and hundreds of people are packed into the club just south of Cleveland, many to see John Davidson (singer to some, host of Hollywood Squares in the 80s for others of us) perform. A fire starts in a room behind a stairway up front. Those escaping through the most obvious exits crush and cannot get out.
Episode 98: The Hajj pilgrimage of 2015: The Hajj has been the site of multiple crushes over time - that many people at once, it’s going to happen. In 2015, there’d already been a crane collapse at the Great Mosque which killed 111 people. Twelve days later, a crush takes over two thousand lives.
Episode 20: The 2010 Love Parade disaster: A music festival is taking place in Duisburg, Germany, when far many people collide heading toward a tunnel intersection.
Episode 6: The Station night club fire: 2003, Rhode Island, little bar, band with pyro. There’s video of this one from a news cameraman. He walks out the open double doors at the front entrance, goes to the back by the stage door with his camera, then returns to the front. Within the thirty seconds he’s been, the exit has gone from clear and flowing to stuck full of people five heads high.
Episode 2: The Hillsborough disaster: Things have changed a lot since I first wrote and recorded this, not the least of which that when I recorded it, there were still only 96 victims. Note: If you look Hillsborough, you will inevitably see news photos of people pressed against the fencing. Some of those photos blurred faces; some did not. In the clear pictures, you may be able to spot people who’ve already lost their lives. Take care. There’s one woman in those photos whose face immediately pops into my head when I think of those images.
But, yes. Lots of crushes, lots of learning what saved other people.
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