8 tips to follow if you're trapped in a crushing crowd
An expert on crowd dynamics shares his advice on how to survive a crush of people. Two tips: don't put a backpack on the ground — and protect your ribs, so you can breathe.
When does a crowd become dangerous? Should you push back in a crush of people? Those are some of the questions you might be asking yourself, after eight people died and more were hurt during a Travis Scott performance at the Astroworld Festival in Houston.
The tragedy put a spotlight on how organizers and emergency staff handled the event. But it also raises direct and personal questions about what we should do to avoid an unsafe crowd — and how you can help yourself and others.
"Most of the time what we do is, we give advice to organizers" about managing crowds, says , a researchscientist in Berlin who studies crowd behavior. "But actually,
