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crowd safety

Photo by Tijs van Leur on Unsplash

High-density crowds can quickly become dangerous.

From concerts to festivals to parades, people love to gather together in shared experiences. Crowds, however, can go from "Oh, there's lots of people here" to a dangerous or even deadly situation without much warning.

The world was shocked and saddened by the news of a Halloween festival crowd crush that killed more than 150 people in South Korea, with officials left debating what safety measures could have prevented such a tragedy. The risk of a deadly surge is always present in high-density crowds, so it's good to know what individuals can do to protect themselves if they find themselves trapped in a wave of people.

Crowd safety expert Paul Wertheimer started going to rock concerts and diving into mosh pits in his 40s, not because he was into Slayer or Metallica or Pantera, but because he wanted to analyze crowd behavior through firsthand experience. He's now been studying crowds for three decades and has sage advice for what to do if you find yourself in a crowd crush situation.

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