An Australian woman who was in the Seoul crowd crush that killed 156 people talked about how she survived despite the “ocean of people.”
TRIGGER WARNING: Crowd crush/ claustrophobia
Australian-Korean woman, Miri Doe, has recently released a heart-wrenching video on her TikTok, detailing her experience surviving the crowd crush in Seoul’s Itaewon district that killed 156 people.
“I got crushed in Itaewon and I don’t know how I’m still alive today,” Miri said in her TikTok video.
“I really don’t know how I survived while my friends couldn’t make it out that night.”
Doe, who is an aspiring rapper, said she was navigating the crowd with her friends when she was, “swept up into an ocean of people.” They were among 100,000 people who were in the area during Halloween.
Miri was taken to the hospital in critical condition after the events of the crowd crush and was treated for severe kidney and liver damage, broken ribs and neck, and first-degree burns on her face from the friction of being dragged on concrete.
“I’m genuinely upset and angry that I couldn’t protect them,” she said while holding back tears.
“My friends and I were at Itaewon because we just wanted a really good time and we wanted to show one of our friends that Halloween in Itaewon was really fun.”
“We just wanted to give her an amazing time but I didn’t think something like this would happen.”
“No one imagined this would happen.”
Doe next detailed how the events unfolded from there.
“I just remembered I lost control, I fell to the ground and that was the last time I saw my friends (alive),” she said.
“It felt like I got swept away into the sea of people. It was like a wave, like I was swept up into this ocean and I was drowning.”
“After the initial shock of falling down onto the floor, and hitting the concrete, everyone started stepping on me.”
“I was getting stepped on my head and my chest.”
“The pain was unbearable. That’s when I started screaming, ‘Please don’t step on me’.”
“I kept yelling but no one could hear me.”
She was then, “dragged” across the concrete. With the situation being completely out of control, she began fearing for her life.
“As I was blacking out, I remember thinking I was going to die because I couldn’t breathe,” she said.
“I was suffering first-degree burns on my face from the friction that was caused from the concrete I was on.”
“But before I passed out (completely), I was thinking, ‘Okay, I’m going to die, I’m really going to die, f***. This is it’.”
Doe then regained consciousness and realized she was lying beneath a pile of people.
“I was lying on the floor for two to three hours, barely breathing,” she recalled.
“Then suddenly, I remember gasping for air and I woke up and I was still here, I was still alive.”
“But at that point, I couldn’t move. I was alive and conscious but I couldn’t yell anymore.”
“The entire time when this happened, I was on the very bottom of the pile of people that were on top of me.”
“When I saw glimpses of the rescuers, they couldn’t see me at all. I was so deep down.”
“I just waited silently until I was rescued.”
She was discharged from the hospital on Thursday after recovering in the ICU for a month following the incident.
Doe said the event caused her to reflect on her life and prioritize her focus moving forward.
“I feel like the only reason I woke up from the crush was because I didn’t do enough in this world,” she said.
“My mind couldn’t accept the fact that I’ll just leave without releasing my music, without pursuing my dreams and without travelling because all I did was work.”
