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TIL mass fatality causing "humam stampedes" and "hysterical masses" are myths which shift responsibility from organisers for fatal crowd incidents which "invariably" result from poor organisation (lemmy.blahaj.zone)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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]

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Absolutely human stampede events happen. What the article is pointing out is the majority of related deaths are preventable, as are the stampede events themselves.

Typically people don't just fall over and get trampled to death. Instead, doors don't open the right way, egress paths are blocked, there are tripping hazards, poor signage, poor crowd control, etc, which leads to incidents where people are hurt or killed. It happens but it's easily prevented.

Edit: I now work in a related field, so this is kinda my jam. It's wild.