Situational Awareness
Situational awareness is the ability to increase personal safety by paying attention to the immediate environment. I wrote about it, in regards to being in crowds in 2021, because of a deadly concert where ten people died.
When friends and allies were deciding about participating in the 50501 demonstrations last week, one asked me to publish my advice about staying safe.
In crowds — whether for fun or during protests:
- Notice where exits are.
- Be mindful not to block exit paths for the people who are in conflict. When people are fighting, leave room for one or both to disengage and leave.
- Attempt to separate the people in conflict. The farther they are from one another, the more likely that you can reduce harm.
- Use verbal and body language to support calming.
Dense crowds:
When there are more than five people per square meter (10.7 SF), there is more to pay attention to. What does that look like? I imagine five people in a five-foot-long conga line (starts at 0:34). That’s pretty close together. If you add a sixth person within that space, they are close enough to be touching. The tightness will vary depending on the size of the people in the line.
Best Plan = Prevention: Watch for areas where people are packed in tighter than a conga line.
When people are crowded, some will push, some will panic. They may become hostile. They may, literally, begin to fight for their lives.
If you are on the perimeter of a crowd that is getting too dense, avoid getting swept into it. You will move more freely on a diagonal – not directly against the flow of people — like you would if trying to swim out of rip current in the ocean.
It is also a good idea to tell people around you what you are doing and why, “It’s too crowded up there, I’m moving out of the crowd.”
You may be in a position to slow down the people moving into the crowd. Be kind. Be calm. Warn them that it is too crowded.
What’s the most dangerous thing about crowds?
People who die in crowds die because they don’t have room to breathe. If you can’t expand your lungs, you will die. Many people fear being trampled, but deaths are usually because they too close together to breathe.
What to do in crowds:
Best Plan:
- Keep moving with the crowd towards the exits.
- Avoid moving towards immovable objects, like pillars or walls, where you can run out of room.
- Lock your arms in front of your body, so that you are protecting room for your lungs to expand. Grasp tightly just above your elbows and hold your arms at about a 50 degree angle in front of your body. Parallel to the ground is too hard to hold, so bring it down a little less then halfway. Hold on to your arms tightly. Imagine being like “I Dream of Jeannie”, but a little more relaxed, so you can sustain it.
- There is danger of getting crushed if you are backed up against an immovable object. If the crowd is pushing, try to angle away from places you can get trapped.
- Stay on your feet. People do get trampled.
Extra things to prepare, for protests:
- Tell someone (privately) that you are going.
- Write the number of a support person on your arm.
- Leave your phone home or someplace away from the demonstration. If you can’t live without a phone, get a prepaid (burner) phone for this demo and all the others in our near future.
- Wear a mask. It will be crowded and viruses are everywhere.