A Mexican medical student was injured during the human stampede in which at least 154 people died this Saturday in the middle of a Halloween celebration in Seoul, the capital of South Korea.
The avalanche left more than 100 injured.
Juliana Velandia Santaella, 23, told The Washington Post that she went to Itaewon, one of Seoul's entertainment districts, to see people in costume.
She went along with her friend Carolina Cano, 21, who also survived.
Around 10:00 pm (local time), Velandia decided to return home through a narrow alley when she suddenly began to feel herself being pushed towards the bottom of the street.
A survivor (right) of the Itaewon disaster cries during the tribute to the victims of the human avalanche during Halloween on October 31, 2022 in Itaewon, Seoul, South Korea.
NurPhoto via Getty Images
"After a moment,
my feet no longer touched the ground
," he told the aforementioned newspaper.
As she tried to get out of the melee, she said, she was short of breath and realized there was an unconscious man on top of her.
"That was affecting my breathing," he said.
In the midst of the stampede, his body became immobile and the only thing he could feel was his neck, as he watched the unconscious bodies fall around him.
[“It was hell”: shock and mourning in South Korea after the death of 153 people in stampede]
"I thought, 'I'm going to be next.' I really
thought I was going to die
," Velandia said.
Many of the victims, both South Korean and foreign, were
in their 20s and 30s.
According to authorities, the people are believed to have been crushed to death after people in the large crowd started pushing each other in the narrow alley.
As Juliana thought the worst, a young man on a ledge managed to lift her up by grabbing her arms.
When she was able to move, she told the Post, she realized it was 10:57 pm.
South Korea mourns the victims of a human avalanche during a Halloween party
Oct. 30, 202202:20
"
There were so many unconscious bodies on the ground
that I couldn't even walk," he recalled.
Although she was immobilized for a long time, Velandia did not go to the hospital on Saturday.
On Sunday, however, she developed a fever and spent four hours in the emergency room at St. Mary's Hospital at the Catholic University of South Korea.
Velandia was diagnosed with
rhabdomyolysis
in her leg, a life-threatening condition consisting of muscle damage and necrosis (death of muscle tissue).
The condition, according to the cited medium, can impact the kidneys and the heart.
It can also lead to
permanent disability or death.
[At Least 125 Killed In Indonesian Soccer Match Due To Human Stampede]
Safety experts have said that some of the most common causes of death during avalanches or human stampedes in crowds are head injuries and rib fractures.
"Unfortunately, once the stampede starts, it's hard to stop," said Rohini Haar, an emergency room physician at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health.
Seoul police have come under intense criticism for their response to the deadly incident.
That officer corps assigned 137 officers to control a crowd that was expected to exceed 100,000 over the weekend.
Authorities
are studying exactly when and where
the massive surge began and how it developed.
"The government will thoroughly investigate the cause of the incident and do its best to make necessary improvements to the systems to prevent a similar accident from happening again," said Prime Minister Han Duck-soo.