What to do if you’re in a crowd of panicking people
Basically, don’t panic.
On December 11, 2017, a pipe bomb detonated at the Port Authority bus station in New York City. Five people were injured from the blast, but no one was seriously harmed in the quick evacuation that followed.
That’s not always the case. In 2005 reports of a bomber in Baghdad left 960 people crushed on to death on a bridge. A 2015 stampede in Mina, Saudi Arabia, the city where pilgrims stay while visiting the holy site Mecca, killed 800. One hundred people died during a soccer math in Sheffield, England in 1989 due to a crowd crush. But while it may be easier said than done, experts say the best thing to do in these situations is to take a deep breath and try to think logically.
Researchers study these incidents, as well as the ways that large groups of people normally behave, in order to understand how to design public spaces. They want to make stadiums and bus stations that are as safe and efficient as possible. Ioannis Karamouzas, a computer scientist at Clemson University, researches how people move normally — and when an outside stressor, like a loud sound or gruesome view, causes them to panic.
Pedestrians usually keep a general awareness of the people surrounding them, though that may not seem…
