cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/17045970
From Wikipedia
Stampede events that involve humans are extremely rare and are unlikely to be fatal.[5] According to Keith Still, professor of crowd science at Manchester Metropolitan University, “If you look at the analysis, I’ve not seen any instances of the cause of mass fatalities being a stampede. People don’t die because they panic. They panic because they are dying”.[5]
Paul Torrens, a professor at the Center for Geospatial Information Science at the University of Maryland, remarks that “the idea of the hysterical mass is a myth”.[5] Incidents involving crowds are often reported by media as the results of panic.[16][17] However, the scientific literature has explained how panic is a myth which is used to mislead the attention of the public from the real causes of crowd incidents, such as a crowd crush.[18][19][20] […] [M]ost major crowd disasters can be prevented by simple crowd management strategies.[22] Crushes can be prevented by organization and traffic control, such as barriers. […] Such incidents are invariably the product of organisational failures.[4]
Yes, available exits are key and people can panic when they can see they are trapped and suffocating.
When organizers of mass gatherings funnel people into areas without exits and people start getting crushed they panic because they are dying. This happens during protests when the police direct them into dead ends or cut off avenues of exit. Alao happens at sporting event with large crowds.
Basically, people are pretty good at dispersing under pressure when they have places to go.