Fri 28 Nov ∞ Permalink

Wal-Mart worker trampled in Black Friday rush - CNN.com

A temporary Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death in a rush of thousands of early morning shoppers as he and other employees attempted to unlock the doors of a Long Island, New York, store at 5 a.m., police said.

Video showed as many as a dozen people knocked to the floor in the stampede of people trying to get into the Wal-Mart store. The employee was “stepped on by hundreds of people” as other workers attempted to fight their way through the crowd…Several minutes passed before others were able to clear space around the man and attempt to render aid. Police arrived, and as they were giving first aid, those police officers were also jostled and pushed.

“Shoppers … were on a full-out run into the store,” an officer said.

The crowd had begun forming outside the store by 9 p.m. Thursday. By 5 a.m. Friday, when the doors were unlocked, there were 2,000 or so shoppers, many of whom “surged forward,” breaking the doors.

You know what the ironic thing is? I’ve seen the Wal-mart ad. There wasn’t anything that great this year. I went to my local Wal-mart at 10 am and there were still quite a few of the “door busters” left.