"Crowd Safety and Survival," Provides Critical Awareness Techniques to the General Public to Recognize and Survive Dangerous Crowds
World renowned crowd management and behavior expert, Larry Perkins, CPP, CMP, now brings crowd safety and survival techniques to the public. “Each day, we hear news accounts of injuries and deaths where people have been involved in some sort of crowd related incident. Our first reaction may invoke an image of someone attending a sporting event or musical performance. The truth of the matter is that crowd related incidents can happen at any time and at any place, whether at a house party, on a balcony, while attending a wedding, standing in line for a special pre-holiday sale, fairs and festivals, religious gatherings or waiting on a train platform.”, said Perkins. “The public must know what to do to protect themselves in crowds.”
Morrisville, NC (PRWEB) May 14, 2005 -- Crowding, stampeding, trampling,
suffocation, with no avenue of escape, is the number one cause of multiple
injuries and deaths by human hands in crowds.
Consider a person’s chest
cavity depressed without the ability to take air into their lungs for a period
of seconds to approximately three minutes? This is sure to cause that person to
lose consciousness. Any time greater than this period may cause irreversible
brain damage, due to the brain’s starvation of air.
Crowds increase or
decrease from a few people to thousands in a matter of minutes. Whether during
ingress, egress, or in celebration or protest, it is within this period that the
greatest potential for serious problems arise.
Perkins noted, “Often
people attending a gathering are not aware of the dangers that lurk within
crowds. Their excitement and attention is usually focused on the event and
activities. They rarely think about what to do, where to go or how to protect
themselves in crowds.”
Perkins should know, for more than twenty-four
(24) years he called the Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey home, serving
as Vice President of Guest Services and Facility Operations. The Meadowlands is
home to the NFL Giants and Jets Football teams, NBA Nets Basketball and NHL NJ
Devils Hockey teams. It is also home to the Meadowlands Race Track, which
features both thoroughbred and harness racing, and thousands of other events
from the Pope to formula one auto racing. He is currently the Assistant General
Manager at the RBC Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, home of the Carolina
Hurricanes of the NHL and North Carolina State Wolfpack Basketball.
“One
of my greatest rewards is knowing that I've planned for every conceivable
situation for the safety of each and every guest attending an event. When the
producers of NBC TV Dateline called me to demonstrate crowd safety techniques on
their “Get Out Alive” segment, I jumped at the opportunity to show people how to
protect themselves in crowds”, said Perkins. Tragedies like those at the Station
Night Club in Rhode Island, where 95 people lost their lives in a fire, the E2
Night Club in Chicago, where 21 people were trampled to death on a stairwell
packed with people as they tried to escape, the recent shooting death at the
Alrosa Villa Club, where the lead singer was shot to death and hostages were
taken, or where the floor collapsed during a wedding in Israel under the
pressure of the crowd, demonstrates why we should take action and learn how to
protect ourselves in crowds.
Perkins served as the expert witness in a
case where 29 wrongful death lawsuits were filed as a result of an incident at
City College of New York where eight people attending a celebrity basketball
event perished on the stairs of the Nat Holman Gymnasium. “I want every parent,
every student, every senior citizen, every patron and every facility manager to
instinctively know what to do when things go wrong at public gatherings.” said
Perkins. Knowing how to recognize and escape the dangers in crowds could save
your life and/or those of your loved ones, he warns. By sharing his experience
and insight, his hope is to save lives while encouraging individuals to live
fully and not fearfully.
In his new book “Crowd Safety and Survival:
Practical Event and Public Gathering Safety Tips,” http://www.lulu.com/content/77654 his “cutting edge”
techniques teach people how to protect themselves in crowds. Safety tips such
as:
- What to do if you are caught in an out of control, packed or moving
crowd.
- Recognizing the danger signals and hot zones of crowds
- Where
you should position yourself within a crowd
- How to escape should you find
yourself down in a crowd
- Learn what to do before you leave home
- Learn
how to gauge the effectiveness of security
- Learn how much time you have to
escape a dangerous situation
- How to protect your chest cavity if caught
against a railing and other barriers.
- Learn about the different types of
surfaces and what they mean.
Perkins is vice chair of the International
Association of Assembly Managers’ Academy of Venue Safety and Security. “In
today’s environment, you must not only teach facility managers how to protect
the public, but teach the public how to protect themselves. Everyone has a
responsibility for safety. The life you save may be your own,” he
said.
Get a free copy of "Crowd Safety Tips" http://www.lulu.com/content/93234 - Limited time
only.
For additional information visit www.ManagingCrowds.com or
contact Larry Perkins at 919-388-1616
# # #
Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/5/prweb240087.htm