324
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/til@lemmy.ca

From Wikipedia

Stampede events that involve humans are extremely rare and are unlikely to be fatal.[5] According to Keith Still, professor of crowd science at Manchester Metropolitan University, "If you look at the analysis, I've not seen any instances of the cause of mass fatalities being a stampede. People don't die because they panic. They panic because they are dying".[5] 

Paul Torrens, a professor at the Center for Geospatial Information Science at the University of Maryland, remarks that "the idea of the hysterical mass is a myth".[5] Incidents involving crowds are often reported by media as the results of panic.[16][17] However, the scientific literature has explained how panic is a myth which is used to mislead the attention of the public from the real causes of crowd incidents, such as a crowd crush.[18][19][20] […] [M]ost major crowd disasters can be prevented by simple crowd management strategies.[22] Crushes can be prevented by organization and traffic control, such as barriers. […] Such incidents are invariably the product of organisational failures.[4]

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] thanks_shakey_snake@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 months ago

I generally agree with the idea that "stampede" is usually the wrong concept to describe these events, and probably the wrong approach to understanding them. Even in the Iroquois Theater case, I think if you eliminated the panic component, the death toll would have been significantly lower (maybe zero), but it still wasn't really the same dynamics as a stampede.

this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2024
324 points (94.5% liked)

Today I Learned (TIL)

6571 readers
1 users here now

You learn something new every day; what did you learn today?

/c/til is a community for any true knowledge that you would like to share, regardless of topic or of source.

Share your knowledge and experience!

Rules

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS