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".
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"'.
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 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.
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.
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.
