"I thought I had died": Itaewon crowd crush survivor speaks up (VIDEOS)

Dec 5 2022, 4:57 pm

Editor’s note: This article contains details that may be disturbing to some readers.


When Miri Doe regained consciousness, gasping for air, she couldn’t believe she was alive.

She had survived the crowd crush in Seoul’s party district of Itaewon on the night of October 29. Due to poor crowd control, Halloween festivities soon turned deadly, ending the lives of 158 people, some of whom were Doe’s friends.

Doe, an aspiring rapper who lives in Korea, shared her experience in a series of TikTok videos about how she thought she was going to die.

“I wish I’d had, like, a good meal before my last day here,” she wondered.

Itaewon

Miri Doe shares a photo with her friends on October 29 (@Miri.Doe/TikTok)

In the videos shot in a hospital and posted on November 5, Doe said that she and her friends went to Itaewon to celebrate Halloween. After going to two clubs, they decided to “call it a night and get home because the crowd was getting quite crazy.”

@miri.doe what really happened at Itaewon #crowdcrush #itaewon #pov #storytime ♬ original sound – MIRI DOE

After leaving the club, she and a friend were separated from their other friends and Doe recalls falling, hitting the concrete, and getting trampled on.

“I was getting stepped on my head and my chest, and the pain was unbearable,” she recalled. “That’s when I started screaming, ‘Please don’t step on me!’ I kept yelling, but no one could hear me.”

Doe recalled being dragged on her face along the concrete by the crowd, and ending up at the bottom of the pile with people on top of her.

“I remember passing out, and I thought I died because I stopped breathing because the pressure on my chest was crazy. It was painful,” she said. “I was just thinking, ‘Okay, I’m going to die, I’m really gonna die, f***, like, I guess this is it.'”

@miri.doe my painful experience at Itaewon last weekend story pt.2 #itaewon #crowdcrush #halloween2022 #povstory ♬ original sound – MIRI DOE

Doe said she kept blacking out and was so deep in the pile of people, she could only see glimpses of the rescuers.

With broken ribs and neck, as well as nerve damage, Doe managed to come out of the crowd crush alive. She’s also being treated for her liver and kidneys, as well as first-degree burns caused by the friction against the concrete.

@miri.doe Never go to itaewon for Halloween ever again #itaewon #crowdcontrol #itaewonhalloween2022 #itaewonstampede #survivorstory ♬ original sound – MIRI DOE

“I don’t know why and how that happened, but I ended up gasping for air later on and I woke up,” she said. “And I feel like the only reason why I woke up was because I didn’t do enough in this world yet. And my mind couldn’t accept the fact that I’ll just leave without releasing my music, without pursuing my dreams, without travelling, because all I did was work.”

The musician said she’s still struggling to come to terms with the deaths of her friends.

In a verse she wrote about her experience, Doe raps:

“My two friends died, why am I alive?
Like, why did they have to die that night?
This can’t be true this is just like Sewol season two,
We were just trick or treating for a good time.
I lost my friend’s hand, I cant understand.
My arms extend, yet I can’t withstand.
Is this really how it ends?”

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