Crowd collapses and crushes
[5] Crowd collapses and crushes are often reported incorrectly as human stampedes, which typically occur when a large group of people all try to get away from a perceived risk to life.
[6] One study has calculated that there were 232 deaths and over 66,000 injuries in the ten years between 1992 and 2002 as a result of such incidents,[7] but crowd scientists believe that such casualties are both vastly under-reported and increasing in frequency.
[3] Even if people are moving quickly, at this density one can avoid obstacles, and the chance of a crowd-related incident is minimal.
The danger inherent in these conditions is that the crowd will collapse in on itself or become so densely packed that individuals are crushed and asphyxiated.
This process is then repeated, causing a bigger void, and will progress until the pressure eases; meanwhile, those who have fallen are at risk of being smothered by the weight of bodies on top or being trampled as the crowd is swept over them.
[5] An example of a progressive crowd collapse was the 2015 Mina stampede in Mecca, Saudi Arabia during the Hajj[13] when over 2,400 people were reported to have died.
[13] Stampede is a loaded word as it apportions blame to the victims for behaving in an irrational, self-destructive, unthinking and uncaring manner, it's pure ignorance, and laziness ...
[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.
[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".
Victims can also exhibit bone fractures caused by the pressure,[19] or trampling injuries, when a crowd has swept over them where they have lain.
In the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, some police and stewards were so concerned with what they saw as possible hooliganism that they took actions that actually made matters worse.
