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]

  • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 month ago

    I’ve felt the latter at a huge, extremely crowded parade and it was the scariest shit I’ve ever felt. Waves is the right word, because it was like being in a wave pool made of people. Fortunately nothing serious happened, but I have never noped the fuck out of anywhere that fast as soon as we were able to.