Black Friday Wal-Mart rush killed employee

What is wrong with people? It's shopping! Is buying something so important the shoppers forgot that they are humans and not animals? I really hope buying what they wanted was worth the life of someone else and then they can go to the funeral to explain how much their purchase was worth this person's life. Top that off with a pregnant woman lost her baby in the same madness.

Worker dies at Long Island Wal-Mart after being trampled in Black Friday stampede
BY JOE GOULD
DAILY NEWS WRITER

Updated Friday, November 28th 2008, 10:19 AM


A worker died after being trampled and a woman miscarried when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island Wal-Mart Friday morning, witnesses said.

The unidentified worker, employed as an overnight stock clerk, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m.

Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him.

"He was bum-rushed by 200 people," said Jimmy Overby, 43, a co-worker. "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too...I literally had to fight people off my back."

Nassau County Police are still investigating and would not confirm the witness accounts. The Medical Examiner will determine the cause of death. Police did say there were several injuries but weren't more specific.
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UPDATE To this story
Cops hunt Wal-Mart shoppers after worker dies

Charges possible after Black Friday crowd tramples employee at N.Y. store

Sat., Nov. 29, 2008
NEW YORK - Police were reviewing video from surveillance cameras in an attempt to identify who trampled to death a Wal-Mart worker after a crowd of post-Thanksgiving shoppers burst through the doors at a suburban store and knocked him down.

Criminal charges were possible, but identifying individual shoppers in Friday's video may prove difficult, said Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, a Nassau County police spokesman.

Other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man, and customers stepped over him and became irate when officials said the store was closing because of the death, police and witnesses said.


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UPDATE to this story 12/2/08

Customers injured in crush suing Wal-Mart

Video showed that as many as a dozen people were knocked to the floor in the stampede of people trying to get into the store. The employee was "stepped on by hundreds of people" as other workers attempted to fight their way through the crowd, said Nassau County Police Detective Lt. Michael Fleming.

Story Highlights
Men suffered injuries after being carried along in rush for bargains, suit claims

Customers also filed claim against police, say they didn't maintain order

One store employee killed in post-Thanksgiving rush for bargains

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Two customers are suing Wal-Mart for negligence after being injured in a mad rush for post-Thanksgiving bargains that left one store employee dead, the men's attorney said Tuesday.

Temporary Wal-Mart worker Jdimytai Damour, 34, was crushed to death as he and other employees attempted to unlock the doors of a store on Long Island at 5 a.m. Friday.

Attorney Kenneth Mollins said Fritz Mesadieu and Jonathan Mesadieu were "literally carried from their position outside the store" and are now "suffering from pain in their neck and their back from being caught in that surge of people" that rushed into the Wal-Mart.

New York Newsday reported that the Mesadieus are father and son, ages 51 and 19.

The lawsuit alleges that the Mesadieus' injuries were a result of "carelessness, recklessness, negligence."

In a claim against the Nassau County police department, the men also contend that they "sustained monetary losses as a result of health care and legal expenses ... in the sum of $2 million."

"This is a tragic situation that could have and should have been avoided with the exercise of reasonable care. There are very simple measures that could have been put in place to avoid this, such as barriers along the line to spread people out, extra security and a better police presence," Mollins said.
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