An American Death [UPDATED]

Trampled by crazed shoppers.  At a Wal-Mart.

UPDATE:  This spawns a new term:  shopper hooligans.

Comments

[Donna B.]

I have never been able to comprehend wanting something bad enough to wait outside in a crowd for the store to open.

Unless it were for food which I could not get any other way, then sure... but for a toy? Electronics? Stuff that is absolutely not needed, merely wanted in a sick competitive way?

[jason]

I read that story yesterday and immediately thought of the Cabbage Patch craze. I'm with Donna: I simply don't understand the deadly herd mentality when it comes to trinkets and baubles.

[amba]

How about flat-panel TVs for only $500?

???

Possibly related, possibly not: I was just thinking that, short of a suitcase nuke, we can do ourselves more harm in this country than terrorists could ever do us.

[karen]

I hate crowds. I can't believe one could run over another human and not think twice about the person on the floor-omg.

I get sick in the car on the way home form Cosco's, kid you not. Migrane and- how crowded is a Cosco's, really. I'd be the one on the ground in that kind of craze.

Definitely not getting me in the mood for an important Holy day.

[Katie]

There is nothing in the world I want bad enough to brave the Thanksgiving Friday shopping crowds. I don't care how much money I could save. The thought of going shopping like that makes me want to throw up.

We don't get carried away on Christmas gifts anyway. One thing per person, and (small) stocking stuffers, that's it. The larger family draws two names--one for a $15 (max) gift and one for a $2 gift. It's lots of fun, not a lot of money and keeps everyone in touch with each other.

I have some co-workers that spend so much on Christmas that they are still paying it off in July--that's nuts.

[Walrus]

Karen, it's not a matter of not caring about the person underfoot. This kind of thing happens when there's pushing from behind. The people at the back want to get in (or out, quite often) so badly that they don't realize that people ahead have fallen and that they're forcing the other people to trample them.

WalMart has to reevaluate its crowd control.

Here in Canada, our big shopping day is the day after Christmas. But many stores now stretch the specials out over an entire week or more, so the insanity has perhaps lessened a bit. I say perhaps, because there's no way you would catch me in the stores.

[karen]

I know about the ones in the back that push- i farm and i've seen many times the effects of a herd that wants to go into the barn, not caring that the ones at the front get pushed through the fence. That is the point- Jason calls it a herd mentality & someone gets killed.

Maybe they do care, but not enough to get out of the pushing crowd. Maybe i don't comprehend how it feels to be in that situation- having no desire to be there in the 1st place. I feel very badly about his loss of life :0(.

[Ruth Anne]

I went one time to the Hallowe'en celebration on State Street in Madison, WI. I wasn't dressed in costume. I was just a gawker. There were so many people that there formed a bottleneck so tight that I could only breathe [outside!] by looking up to the sky. I couldn't see my feet. I held my very nice wooden umbrella tightly by my leg. It resisted me and I would not relent. My umbrella, unopened, got the hook broken off in the midst of that crowd. Sometimes, you are not in charge, you are only being pushed along in the flow. And it was scary for a moment and then exhilerating. But no one died nearby.

Doing a military parachute jump also has a similar 'flow' to it...stand up, hook up [your static line to the interior of the aircraft], shuffle to the door. They keep a tight pack so you don't miss the drop zone and land in the trees. I guess they make it so uncomfortable that you want to exit the aircraft.

[Walrus]

Karen, the moral of the story is to avoid herds, I guess. And stores should have plans to handle these kinds of crowds. A simple rope maze probably would have prevented the crush.

[karen]

Maybe they don't think things like this happen in the USA?

When cattle go through a fence, no one gets crushed- at least, not here. It just means- our cows are loose, running here, there and everywhere and we have to catch their wayward butts and get them into either the pasture again, or the barn.

I'm not as energetic as i used to be-- and i'm really outta shape these days. Oh- wait... round is a shape :0).

[GN]

Maybe I am in a deeply skeptical mood, but I can picture some really unfocused parent ... three days after Xmas yelling at their child to take better care of that toy ... someone had to die so you could have it.