OT: Anyone watching this haunting 30 for 30 tonight?

[jgeorge322]

Not that it is in the same magnitude of tragedy but this reminds me a lot of people getting trampled to death during Black Friday shopping. It's scary how little regard for life some people have in situations like that. (Not trying to say what happened at this game was the fans fault just piggybacking off some points.)

you dont think the stores are responible for allowing a herd of people to crowd outside their door and then letting them all in simulatenously? im as defense oriented as it gets but blaming crowds for occurrences like these just seems so far beyond common sense to me. the only argument id have against black friday shoppers is they voluntarily placed themselves in an unusual crowd of people. however, in hillsborough, it was a soccer match so there wasnt anything unusual.

 

[CaptainJ]

I didn't watch the 30 for 30, but saw a documentary on Hillsborough years ago and it was sad. I can't remember all the details, so I won't comment. It may have been on youtube or a torrent.

If anyone has ever been to a very large general admission concert where there performers excite the crowd enough(sometimes before even stepping on stage), you'd realize sometimes you don't have a choice in your movement and it is like waves in the ocean...except for the people in front getting crushed against the fence or any poor SOB who goes to the ground. I know at least one other member on here has been to such a concert I coincidentally was at. At another one, I learned a trick during the surprise guest(Red Hot Chili Peppers) last act of a festival at RFK stadium for the Tibetan Freedom Concert. Ironically, the fellow I watched doing it appeared to be Native American(you've only got to look a sentence back if you didn't catch it). He was a large guy, but apparently he wanted to avoid having trouble breathing like myself, and clasped his hands chest height in front of him making a space between them and his chest. It worked surprisingly well for me as well, but after about a 20 minute set, my shoelaces were torn off and I probably had quite an endorphin rush. I was either 4 or 5 rows from the front fence, having followed some guy pushing a guy in a wheelchair for a large portion of the way, then edging further on my own. Check out the pictures. Apparently a number of folks thought the show was over and started to trickle out after Pearl Jam finished, but most of us hung around, and then the Chili Peppers took the stage using Pearl Jam's equipment and this is where the surge came. Check out the picture and imagine being at the front of that(that wasnt RHCP, just something to give an idea of the crowd size and how standing still isnt always a choice). I threw in a picture of the tickets with the lineup...um...just because I wanted to show the great acts who like to perform for great causes.

The stands weren't necessarily safer. The day before, shortly after my friends and I turned from the stage to go grab something to drink, we saw lighting hit the stands. I thought surely people had died, but I guess one young lady was hit directly and survived, while 10 others were injured. ...Of course that wasn't as hard to read about as hearing one of the speakers tell of the Tibetan Monks and Nuns having electric cattle prods pressed against or inserted into their genitalia. Hats off to Adam Yauch/MCA(RIP) of the Beastie Boys for organizing these events and the protests that some of us stayed to participate in the next day.

 

[pearl31]

That's exactly my point. When I say "you" I mean everyone. A person doesn't move until the person in front of them moves. Therefore, if I don't move the people behind me don't. A stadium doesn't have to be designed a certain way for this to happen. I was a concert with standing room only where the crowd suddenly surged forward because things were being tossed into the crowd. I wasn't going to contribute to it, so I stayed put. I don't know what happened to the people in front, probably nothing, but if everyone stayed where they were instead of thinking the meaningless object was important there would be no chance of anyone getting hurt.

Would better stadium design with seating for everyone prevent it? Sure. But if people didn't try and crowd ahead, it wouldn't have happened either.

Not to pile on, but you need to see the doc. Absolutely no way in the world any of the people in that pen could have simply stood still/not moved forward.

 

[JDubbin]

it's crazy the uncomfortable sense of helplessness you get watching it... especially when some of the police officers described what they saw as people were getting crushed against the fence in the pens, specifically a young boy. The clip of 5 years ago when the entire crowd at Anfield interrupted the politician during his speech at the 20 year anniversary, chanting for justice was beyond powerful.

 

[SWC75]

http://syracusefan.com/threads/hillsborough-disaster-25th-anniversary.74258/

I remember shortly after Hillsborough I attended the 114/23/89 West Virginia football game, (a last minute 17-24 loss). I walked from the Dome to College Place to Pick up the shuttle bus to Manley, the guides were telling people that the Manley buses were to the left and Skytop to the right- the opposite of the normal set-up up. I went left into the concrete culvert in front of the School of Architecture. The guides then realized they had made a mistake and directed Manley people to the right and Skytop to the left. In that narrow culvert, people were entering form both ways and those of us in the middle were getting sandwiched together. It was impossible not to think of Hillsborough. i realized that if anybody panicked, people might fall and get hurt. By the side of the culvert there was a single chain fence. I wedged my way out and ducked under it, (almost getting run over by a bus. But I got back to where I needed to be.

The psychology of crowds and the proper design of public places is an interesting topic that needs to be thoroughly studied. As I said in the linked thread, it's amazing that the horrendous Bradford City fire four years earlier resulted in 56 deaths and the Hillsborough tragedy, which is just people moving forward to see a sporting event, (not panicked people running away from something), killed 96 people. I agree that poor design and official incompetence certainly played a role but it's till amazing that a crowd would mindlessly surge forward in such a way that anybody would be killed, much less 96 people. It is worth noting that in the Bradford City clip you see people climibing over the wall to escape the fire, something they could not have done at Hillsborough.

The Bradford City fire also was due to official incompetence. It was a wooden structure with open stands. People had a habit of letting refuse fall from under their seat to the open area below the stands, (or even tossing it there). The people in charge of the arena had been ordered to pick up the pile of trash under the stands but it had not been done, in part because the entire place was being rebuilt with steel and concrete- this was the last game in front of the old wooden stand and the materials for building the replacement were sitting outside the arena. Somebody dropped a cigarette butt or a used match below the stands. The trash caught fire and the whole thing went up in flames within a few minutes. If they'd cleaned the place out regularly, nothing would have happened and 56 people would have gone home that night.

 

[LPOrange]

How does ESPN have such impeccable timing for these things? Liverpool leads the EPL by 5 points with 3 games left. They haven't won the League since the 89-90 season.

 

[DeGrozz]

How does ESPN have such impeccable timing for these things? Liverpool leads the EPL by 5 points with 3 games left. They haven't won the League since the 89-90 season.

Coincidence. It was the 25th anniversary of the disaster.