Sash said she was in the crowd when it rushed the main gate. “If you look at it, you can see there were more tickets sold than there were seats available.” One concertgoer, John Limoli, 35, Fairborn, Ohio, said: “Why did they open one door at a time when there were thousands of people out there?”Ĭindy Sash, 25, Kettering, said the concert was oversold. Witnesses said that only one door at the main gate was opened shortly before the concert, and the crowd, estimated in the thousands, rushed forward. The Who last appeared in Cincinnati at a concert in the coliseum in December of 1975. One of the callers included a police sergeant seeking to learn if his daughter were safe. “There’s nothing you can do,” one officer was overheard telling a parent. He said there was “some evidence of footprint-like injuries.”ĭistrict One police, meanwhile, sought to discourage worried parents from going to the coliseum. Alexander Trott, emergency room supervisor at General, said the victims died of multiple contusions and hemorrhages. Treated at General Hospital were John Watts and Shane Renkel, both of Dayton, Ohio, and Cathy Calhoun, Cincinnati.ĭr. The injured taken to Christ Hospital were William Taylor, Hamilton, Ohio, multiple abrasions Terry Thomas, Centerville, Ohio, injured left foot and Timothy Deal, Columbus, injured right hand. and Shawna Abbott, 20, 6584 Newbridge, White Oak. Three of those injured and listed in fair condition at Good Samaritan Hospital were identified as Todd Volkman, 18, Quailwood, Loveland Diane Cubert, 20, 3828 Lory Dr., Erlanger, Ky. Victims were taken to General, Mercy, Deaconess and Good Samaritan Hospitals. He said the bodies were probably found only after the crowd passed over them. I don’t know if they had been moved from where they fell, but most were away from the door.”īruce said he saw several bodies. Police Officer Walter Bruce, who was at the coliseum, said the victims “were probably stepped on and fell down people just fell down.
The whole occurrence took no more than 40 minutes. The doors are located on the west side of the coliseum on the plaza level.Ī witness, Isy D’Agostino, a Dayton, Ohio, nurse, said, “For some odd reason people were compressed completely (near the coliseum doors). The Coliseum holds 18,000 for concert events.ĭECEMBER 3, 1979: The Who Tennis shoes, shirts, jackets and other personal belongings, dropped in the stampede on the arena doors, were swept into a pile inside the empty coliseum lobby.Ĭoncertgoers inside apparently were unaware of the tragedy that had unfolded just outside the main gates, where the entrance was strewn with broken glass, hats, gloves, coats and beer cans. The crowd began growing at 3 p.m., police said, nearly four hours before the gates were opened. Seats at the concert were both reserved and open, police and concertgoers said. Police Officer Dave Grawe said the rush occurred between 7:30-8 p.m. A spokesman for The Who said the group has a booking in Buffalo today. The concert promoters, Electric Factory Concerts, based in Philadelphia, declined comment. “We weren’t over capacity or anything like that,” said Shoner.Ĭoliseum officials would not comment on which doors were opened and when. Mark Shoner, general manager of Cincinnati Ticketron, would not disclose how many tickets were sold for the concert, adding those figures would have to come from Coliseum officials. “The kids kept breaking the gate more and more.
Eleven fans of the rock band were killed when a thousands-strong crowd stampeded to get into Cincinnat's riverfront coliseum. 3, 1979 file photo, Cincinnati police officers help people crushed during a performance by the rock group The Who in Cincinnati, Ohio. Ray Schuerman, an usher at the main gate, said the trouble appeared to start when someone threw a bottle at the gate and broke the door’s glass.įILE - In this Dec.
“We needed to get the doors open much earlier,” Menkhaus said. Dale Menkhaus said two few doors were opened too late to handle the sellout crowd. The total number injured had not been determined late Monday.Īt a press conference at District One police headquarters, Lt. Identity of the victims was to be released sometime today. A coroner’s spokesman said the ages of the victims ranged from 18 to the early 20s.Ī team of clergymen accompanied parents of victims through the Hamilton County morgue late Monday night. The Hamilton County Coroner’s office said the dead included seven males and four females. 4, 1979.ĬINCINNATI – Eleven people were killed and eight seriously injured at Riverfront Coliseum Monday night in a human stampede through the arena’s doors before the start of The Who rock group concert. Editor's note: After the tragedy at Astroworld, we look back at how this isn't the first time it happened, and we present the original news coverage from The Cincinnati Enquirer on Dec.
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