How to survive a crisis in a crowd

How to survive a Crisis in a Crowd

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Survive a Crisis in a Crowd
Surviving crisis if you're stuck in a crowd

Navigate your loved ones to safety in a crowd.
You can't huddle into a bunker and hide from what may happen,
but life can take a turn for the worse suddenly while you're on the
street, in a large building, or at a concert.

Crowds can be dangerous, not only in terms of rioting, but also
for terrorism. Your fate could turn at any public venue ~ whether
you're at a festival, a concert, a crowded stadium, a religious
event, or wherever large crowds roam. While you can't control
what happens, you can control how you respond.

Knowing how to respond to crowds and teaching your kids how to
respond will provide you with some peace of mind as will having
situation awareness. You can navigate your family to safety and
survive calamity!

Following is a list of ideas for how to survive a crisis in a crowd...

How to survive a Crisis in a Crowd
Overcrowding can turn to disaster in a flash, which is way you
must always pay attention when you are in a crowd of people.

When things go wrong in a crowd as they did in Manchester,
England May 22, 2017 at an Ariana Grande concert, anything can
happen:

A crowd can stampede or flee over barriers.
Kids and adults can become trampled.
Families and groups can become separated.

Below are some guidelines to help survive a crisis if you're stuck
in a crowd.

Crowd Rule #1: Maintain Situational Awareness.
Situational awareness can help you survive crisis in a crowd. At
every juncture as a prepper when you are out and about you must
assess our situation: this is called "situational awareness." It's
being aware of what is happening in your surroundings and in
understanding how this information and the events, along with
your actions could impact the outcome.

Situational awareness is about making judgments on people
who look out of place or who aren't focused on the
entertainment"

Is it a hot day and someone has on an overcoat?

Trust your gut. Rely on your instincts as the situation
unfolds. Instincts is nature's warning call. When you trust
your gut, you'll leave the area before crisis even happens. So
if something looks out of place, it likely is and you and your
loved ones could be in danger.

Crowd Rule #2: Plan the great escape.
As you take your seats in the arena, do more than just make note
of the exits: prioritize them!

Have an exit strategy (prioritize exits). On instinct people
will want to exit where they entered, but that's not
necessarily where you should prioritize your exit. Also, you
may have a different plan depending on the scenario. For
example, if the lights go out, you can count chairs until you
get to the planned exit.

Avoid bottlenecks. Avoid the herd mentality as there could
be bottlenecks and you could be caught up in one and be
squeezed to death.

Take the exit less travelled. Know this about exits,
sometimes people aren't logical and they head towards one
exit and ignore others. That's because they haven't given
much thought and haven't done a situational analysis. As a
prepper you should take the exit less traveled, which could
mean jumping the concession stand, walking through the
kitchen and taking the employee exit.

Make sure kids are aware of unusual exits. An important
thing to note is that there is never just one exit; however,
the kids may think there is but one exit. In a movie theater
for example, an exit could include the fire exit and not where
you entered the movie theater. Be sure to point out all the
exits to your child.

Crowd Rule #3: Know how to handle a stampede.
Understand crowd dynamics. There's a difference between a
stampede and a craze. Sometimes people are moving towards a
valued item and not necessarily away from danger.

Go with the flow or step aside:

Walk and don't run. Tripping can be a deadly mistake and
children are most at peril in a stampede because of their
size, which is why you must emphasize walking briskly and
rationally.

Lock arms and go if you can. Locking arms with loved ones
will keep your bodies close together helping to avoid
separation, which is especially important if you have kids.
Hands can separate, but locked arms are more secure. This
is especially important if one person is navigating the exit.
An arm lock could save your child from being trampled to
death! An arm lock also provides "strength in numbers" for
all members of your group if the danger involves a
confrontation with an assailant.

Protect your noggin and chest like a boxer! Kids and
people of short stature in particular must know to keep
forearms in front. (You can log arms and do this.) Particularly
if kids separate from you, have them take a boxer's pose
with fists protecting the face. Having arms out stretched can
help keep balance, but a such a stance can also ward off an
impact of bodies that may trample.

The boxing position protects your head.

The boxing position protects your chest. The boxing
pose can prevent asphyxiation~ a blunt force trauma to
the chest. According to the New York Times, "Many
stampede fatalities result not from trampling but from
compressional asphyxia, in which people are squeezed
to death upright or in a pileup."

Move aside if you must. Zig zagging can save a life. Take a
swift plan of action to move to the side if possible and not
necessarily the same direction as the crowd of people.
Depending on what's happening, it might be necessary to
duck away. In any event, the goal should be to get to the
outer edge of the crowd. Move away from the deadly center.

Steer clear of glass windows.

Leave it behind. If you drop something, leave it behind. No
purse, wallet or jacket is worth the risk of retrieving. Bending
over to pick up something other than a loved one could be a
fatal mistake.

Rule #5: Respond quickly, react with confidence.
What separates survivors from those who don't make it? People
who respond quickly, remain clear in head, focused in their task,
have a distinct advantage in surviving a crisis.

The fight or flight response kicks in and this intuition could save
your life if you allow yourself to focus your energy decisively and
confidently.

Rule #6: Never underestimate the danger.
Never underestimate the danger of crowds. There's something
called a "crowd crush" Here's how to survive a high density crowd
situation. Mass panic, stampeding. There's much to consider.

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Happy endings...
Always have an escape route, maintain situational awareness, and
understand how crowds respond to what transpires. You can
navigate your family to safety.

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Prepare to live happily ever after with us at happypreppers.com - the Web site of
emergency preparedness, prepping, survival, homesteading and self-sufficiency.

Above, learn how crowds can kill you.

Rule #7: Have a separation plan.
If possible, lock arms to stay together, but have a separation
plan. For kids it might be complicated depending on age as they
may not be able to navigate to the specified location.

For adults this could mean meeting at a particular hospital, but if
there are large casualties patients may be transferred to other
facilties.

Rule #8: Debrief.
Have a debriefing with everyone involved to dissect what
happened after the crisis and in the process be sure to praise kids
to reassure them. You may learn a few things in how you have
reacted with one another to improve should something similar
ever happen again. Your children will gain confidence and have
key survival skills.

Crowds can kill. Now you know how to stay safer.

For Coronavirus information, please see the Centers For Disease Control Website