Dozens in cardiac arrest in Halloween crowds in South Korea | Hacker News Reader

Dozens in cardiac arrest in Halloween crowds in South Korea

bbc.com

67 pointsIdealeZahlen45 comments

Is "cardiac arrest" in Korea code for "dead", the way it is in Japan? There people can only legally be declared dead at hospitals, so people are reported to be "in cardiac arrest" even if they've been (say) decapitated.

Huh that’s fascinating. In Canada there’s a small list of cases where paramedics can declare someone dead. Decapitation is one of them.

In Austria we call it "conditions incompatible with life".

In CA (and probably elsewhere) the list usually also contains incineration, decomposition, rigor mortis, and livor mortis. And depending on the county the list can also include other signs that are a bit more nuanced. Such as apneic + pulseless + DNR. Or submerged for over an hour.

Aka "rapid unscheduled disassembly"

I am Korean and we are getting "dead confirmed" number separately now, reported by hospitals. So yes, "cardiac arrest" is reported from the accident site and it is unlikely that they are going to survive.

I wonder how it is different in other countries.

In the US journalists will often use the term 'unresponsive' in similar situations.

Swedish media usually say "seriously injured" until police or hospitals confirm.

Thinking about it, we also say “injured or dead" (사상자) when it's about the number.

that's not uncommon in the USA either when news is still incoming from an ongoing emergency situation with incomplete information available.

I guess “stopped heart” is technically correct. Odd that there’s an overlap where in North America we normally think of it as meaning heart attack.

I don't think I've seen "cardiac arrest" used like this in Korean news until recently. Might be a recent shift by journalists.

There’s something to be said for the media alerting everyone in their localities of potential Halloween threats. Every time the media alert us of some new threat (e.g rainbow fentanyl) and it’s a false alarm, people ultimately experience a sort of cry-wolf effect and this results in kids experiencing the negative consequences.

The media ultimately aren’t incentivized properly to reserve these reports to account for these transitive impacts, and as long as we’re consuming these channels for free they end up cashing in on our fears and showing us these reports to make a quick buck.

Spooky in its own way I guess.

Yeah just this morning I saw in bold on my newsfeed: "URGENT RECALL" for some chocolate bars from costco or whatever, and this is days before Halloween.

It was a small quality-control/expiry date recall for adult snacks.

I don't see this kind of behavior ending well for anyone involved.

Video footage https://nitter.net/theseoulite/status/1586377215457230848#m

Warning: There are potentially dozens of dead bodies visible in this video

Thank you for linking to Nitter, it's much appreciated.

surreal to see chest compressions occurring in such quantity in a single scene.

Crowds can be extremely dangerous

Whenever I am in a big crowd I have an exit plan, if my exit options diminish to one or two options I get out. I've been in a crush before, it's terrifying, especially being 5'3".

I go to a pretty large festival. My partner and I talk about a plan to exit for every set we go to and we generally go to the same location in each crowd.

Incident seems a bit disperse for a crush? Usually would be a choke point like a door instead bodies on the road & the mention of '81 reports of "shortness of breath"'.

Edit: "local media reports earlier said the crush happened after a large number of people rushed to a bar after hearing a celebrity was visiting." https://sg.news.yahoo.com/south-korea-100-injured-people-155...

They happen suddenly, so even if you saw a large crowd moving you might not know what you're looking at. Basically the crowd compacts because people are trying to move at all different directions on the exiting side edge so a massive slowdown occurs. Meanwhile, the farthest edge of the crowd or in a sufficiently large crowd the center mass acts as a force that condenses everything between it and the edge.

There are ways to mitigate this, like having multiple exiting edges and spacing out sets so people don't feel like they're in a hurry or knowing what sets lots of people are going to want to get to and spacing those out.

I was at the love parade in Duisburg in 2010 when IIRC 20 people died and over 500 were injured after too many people tried to rush through a tight ramp and it caused a mass panic. I think most of the victims literally suffocated from having their chests crushed.

Stampedes and crowd crushes are just terrifying. That famous nightclub fire video that had people die from getting crushed at the exit was a total nightmare.

I actually wonder if there are ways to survive or at least spot a crush early. It's not something I really worry about, all things considered, but it will definitely be in my mind whenever I decide to do my Mecca pilgrimage. Though considering the gigantic crowds involved there, there's probably nothing you can do even if you spot very early signs of a crush anyway.

Keeping your arms up and creating space for yourself using your elbows should work most of the times if you are average/above average in height. It's mostly kids and women who suffer most in stampedes due to getting trampled or choked by the pressure of the crowd.

Yeah. From AP: 120 dead.

https://twitter.com/seungminkim/status/1586418872206360577

I just never get in crowds like that I would simply turn around before entering a mass of people like that.

reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disaster

What a disastrous rabbit hole.. It seems like the switch in police command led to lack of proper crowd control, and with hot spots, led to the crushing.

From the guidelines

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

Other source says: (ap) "South Korean officials say dozens of people were in cardiac arrest after being crushed by a large crowd pushing forward on a narrow street during Halloween festivities in the capital Seoul."

Thank you, the BBC left that question begging. I was thinking maybe it was some kind of neurotoxin attack, mass hysteria, or something as yet unknown.

Except that it didn't: "Dozens of people are reported to be in cardiac arrest after a reported crush among crowds in a popular nightlife area of South Korea's capital, Seoul." (Not that that's what "begging the question" means anyway, but let's not go there! :)

What an insane, click bait title from BBC! No mention of stampede!

If you've ever watched BBC in 1980s, the contrast couldn't be more stark. An amazing institution destroyed by modern journos.

Perhaps the reason is not modern journalists but click baits, incentive to make money, desire for outrage, rampant populism from politicians and so on.

Also bbc wasn’t actually ever good. People just have more access to information and they’re realizing what a shit show the “good” news sources are.

Not that the more information is always right or better. It’s just more points of observation.

They probably couldn’t confirm it was a stampede.

It's in the first sentence though, described as a crush.

It’s still a developing situation but a famous celebrity could be involved in why so many were crowded together.

The BBC (and all other UK institutions like The Guardian) is basically entirely clickbait and US propaganda nowadays.

BBC fell off my radar when they stopped being truly informative so I’m out of the loop on this: how did they become US propaganda?

The title have since been updated to "South Korea Halloween crush kills 120, injures 100 - officials" since they likely got more information now.

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