Staircase crush leads to fatality
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Partygoers frantically tried to pull people out of a pile of bodies after they were crushed in a stairwell at a Dunedin party.
One woman died and two others were seriously injured in the incident about midnight at a Dundas St flat, known as The Manor, on Saturday.
A witness, who declined to be named, said they were about halfway up the internal stairs when people coming down started pushing into each other, with a ‘‘massive crowd’’ of people going up.
‘‘They started to fall backwards and when the people at the top started falling it was kind of like dominoes – everyone went down and the people at the bottom of the stairs just ended up in a pile of people,’’ the witness said.
‘‘I was trying to hold it up, I could see it getting bad, then I started to get knocked over, got out of the way.’’
He then made his way out the front door, with about 50 people in a pile outside the front door.
He said the pile was about 1 metre high. The student, with the help of about 15 others, tried frantically to pull everyone out of the pile, however more people kept coming down the stairs trying to force their way out, making the pile-up worse.
‘‘We would get people off and more people would end up getting pushed back on top of the pile.’’
By the time police arrived the
group had managed to clear most of the pile, aside from a few people lying on the ground unconscious. The witness said the woman who died was found at the bottom of the pile and was one of the last people to get out.
Several people carried the woman from the ground floor down the stairs and across the road where ambulance staff tried to resuscitate her. The witness said he was angry with fellow partygoers, who he said made the situation worse.
‘‘The whole time people were more interested in trying to force their way into the front door where everyone was getting crushed, we were trying to pull people up and people were trying to force their way in.
‘‘People were struggling and, instead of helping, people were way more interested in trying to party.’’
Another student, who had visited the all-male student flat several times, said it was the ‘‘most out of control party’’ he had ever seen there. ‘‘It is traditionally a party flat, they have a couple during the year, but this one was next level.’’