Why There Were More Women Victims in Itaewon Halloween Tragedy?
The tragedy that took place during Halloween in Itaewon district, Seoul, South Korea has been declared to cause more than 300 casualties. Half of them died mostly due to compressive asphyxia, a condition where people’s airways become constricted due to colliding with one another. The deadly tragedy inflicted nearly twice as many women as victims as it did to men. Out of 156 deceased victims, 101 of them were women. This raises a question why women were more fatally injured in this tragedy.
What could be the factor of more women victims?
Itaewon nightlife district’s narrow lanes attracted up to 100,000 people on Saturday night. The throngs of people and narrow spaces were the reason of why a crowd crush happened. Even the gender ratio of the crowd of the deadly crush remains unclear. According to some medical professionals, people with smaller body frames and less physical strength are more likely to sustain injuries in a crowd surge. In this case, women tend to have smaller figures.
Park Jae-Sung, a professor of fire and disaster prevention at Soongsil Cyber University also spoke up about this. He said, “The women’s strength to withstand pressure is normally poorer than males, and considering coupled with the capacity to be resuscitated, therefore that may have been why there were more female victims.” When everyone trapped fights for their own survival, those who are physically weaker could be killed. Since breathing demands constant movement of the diaphragm and respiratory muscles.
The average Korean male is 170.6 centimeters tall and weighs 72.7 kilograms, while the average Korean woman is 157.1 centimeters tall and weighs 57.8 kilograms. This could also affect the pressure of crowd tension. Choi Suk Jae, an emergency medicine specialist and public relations director of the Korean Emergency Medical Association, stated that 5 to 10 centimeters [2-4 inches] in height makes a big impact when it comes to chest pressure.
Are women more prone to compressive asphyxia?
According to G. Keith Still, a professor of crowd science at the University of Suffolk, the evidence whether or not women are more susceptible to compressive asphyxia than men is inconclusive. However, a number of reasons might have contributed to a rise in female mortality in the Itaewon case.
Professor Still also added that despite having smaller frames than men, women have more body mass in their upper chest. They generally have bigger chests than men which if pressure is applied, there will be a greater mass pushed inward, which is more harmful for women. It made women struggle more to breathe while getting the tension.
Another factor that could be considered is when people are packed together, there will be a strength play. Generally men have more strength on their upper-body. So they are more likely to be able to claw their way out of a predicament.
“Women were repeatedly saying ‘please don’t push’ as men were saying ‘push, push’.”
According to eyewitnesses and survivors’ testimony, some men were able to flee the scene easier while women were unable to do so. Men were able to enter some stores nearby by clawing while women suffered to do so.
One of the survivors, a high school student named Eunseo Kim and her friend pushed themselves into the crowd. The crowd grew denser as she made her way up the narrow alley on a hill. She said, “Women were repeatedly saying ‘please don’t push’ as men were saying ‘push, push’.” Kim remembered she started struggling to breathe as her chest was crushed. Then she lost her balance and then fell. She stepped on her ankle, wrist and calf, as people started to panic and did not notice her at the ground anymore. She genuinely thought she would die then. Incredibly, she survived with some severe injuries.
Kim also said she saw a few guys making their way out by ascending a building and relocating to a less congested section. This shows how men were easier to find their way out than women.
Most death victims appear to have been caused by asphyxia-induced cardiac arrest, a condition where people were suffocated to death due to being crushed so tightly. Local authorities mentioned that most victims were unresponsive to CPR during the rescue. Many people must have already suffered brain damage due to asphyxia.
The first five minutes following cardiac arrest are called ‘golden hour’, after which brain damage occurs. After 10 minutes, the harm becomes permanent. It applied to the most victims in the Itaewon accident, since it already took several minutes to pull them out of the pile of bodies. Which causes fatal results on the victims even with the help of rescue workers.
