Tag: crowd safety

Survive a Disneyland Mass Shooting – Active Shooters Can Attack Anywhere

On By The.Daily.ChristianIn Disneyland, Mass ShooterLeave a comment

Disneyland is known worldwide as “The Happiest Place on Earth.” Families travel from across the globe expecting safety, joy, and unforgettable memories. Yet from a survival preparedness perspective, any large, crowded venue must be evaluated honestly and without emotion. Dense crowds, limited exits, sensory overload, and a false sense of security create vulnerabilities that cannot be ignored.

As a professional survival prepper, my goal is not to spread fear—but to replace blind trust with calm, practical awareness. Emergencies do not announce themselves politely, and violence does not respect location, intention, or innocence. Preparation is not paranoia. Preparation is responsibility.

This article focuses on how to survive a mass shooting scenario at Disneyland during a busy day, using principles of situational awareness, avoidance, hiding, and proactive behavior. This is about staying alive, protecting loved ones, and making it home.

Understanding the Reality of Disneyland as a High-Density Environment

Before discussing survival strategies, it is important to understand the environment itself.

Disneyland during peak hours contains:

  • Tens of thousands of people
  • High noise levels (music, rides, crowds)
  • Visual distractions everywhere
  • Bottlenecks at rides, restaurants, and walkways
  • Families with children, strollers, and mobility limitations

These factors significantly affect how emergencies unfold. In survival preparedness, crowd density is risk density. Panic spreads quickly. Movement slows dramatically. Information becomes unreliable.

Your advantage is awareness before chaos.

Being Proactive: Spotting Warning Signs Before Violence Starts

Most people assume a mass shooting begins suddenly and without warning. In reality, many incidents include observable pre-incident indicators that go unnoticed because people are distracted.

Behavioral Red Flags to Watch For

While no single sign confirms a threat, combinations matter:

  • A person moving against crowd flow without purpose
  • Heavy clothing inconsistent with weather
  • Visible agitation, pacing, or clenched posture
  • Fixation on entrances, exits, or security
  • Ignoring rides, entertainment, or companions
  • Repeatedly adjusting clothing or bags
  • Sudden isolation in a crowded environment

Trust your instincts. Humans evolved to sense danger. If something feels off, act early by creating distance.

Environmental Awareness Habits

Professional preppers constantly scan for:

  • Nearest exits (not just the main one)
  • Areas of cover vs. concealment
  • Crowd choke points
  • Quiet zones vs. high-density zones

Make it a habit to ask:

“If something goes wrong here, where do I go?”

You don’t need to obsess—just observe.

Immediate Survival Priorities If a Mass Shooting Begins

Survival doctrine prioritizes distance, barriers, and time. Your objective is not confrontation—it is survival.

1. Create Distance (Escape When Possible)

If you can safely move away:

  • Move immediately and decisively
  • Do not stop to film or investigate
  • Leave belongings behind
  • Help children first
  • Follow staff instructions when available
  • Move away from the sound of danger, not toward it

Avoid main entrances if they are congested. Side exits, service corridors, and less popular areas may offer safer escape routes.

2. Hiding: Surviving When Escape Is Not Possible

There will be situations where escape is impossible due to crowd pressure, locked areas, or proximity to danger. Hiding then becomes a survival tool.

Principles of Effective Hiding (Disneyland Context)

  • Break line of sight: You want barriers between you and danger.
  • Avoid predictable hiding spots: Bathrooms and obvious rooms fill quickly.
  • Stay quiet: Silence phones, children’s toys, and electronics.
  • Stay low and still: Movement attracts attention.
  • Barricade when possible: Use heavy objects to reinforce doors.

Ideal hiding characteristics include:

  • Solid walls or structures
  • Limited access points
  • Ability to lock or block entry
  • No external visibility

Remember: concealment hides you; cover protects you. Cover is always preferable.

Slowing or Stopping a Mass Shooting: A Survival-Focused Perspective

This is an important but sensitive subject.

As a survival prepper, I do not advocate for untrained civilians to pursue confrontation. Attempting to physically stop a shooter without training or coordination often increases casualties.

However, there are non-violent, survival-oriented actions that can reduce harm:

Actions That Can Reduce Impact Without Direct Combat

  • Early reporting of suspicious behavior to staff or security
  • Rapid evacuation to reduce available targets
  • Barricading and lockdown to limit movement
  • Using alarms or alerts to draw attention and trigger response
  • Providing first aid to the injured when safe

Disruption does not always mean physical engagement. Time, obstacles, and isolation save lives.

Law enforcement and trained security are responsible for neutralization. Your role is survival.

Family Survival: Protecting Children and Dependents

Children are especially vulnerable in crowded emergencies.

Prepper Rules for Families at Disneyland

  • Establish a rally point before entering the park
  • Teach children to:
    • Stay with adults
    • Follow instructions
    • Drop to the ground if separated
  • Use physical identifiers discreetly (bracelets inside clothing)
  • Assign roles:
    • One adult leads
    • One adult sweeps

Practice calm authority. Panic spreads faster than danger.

Everyday Survival Gear You Can Legally Carry at Disneyland

Preparedness does not require tactical equipment. Subtle, everyday items save lives.

Low-Profile Survival Items

  • Compact first aid kit (tourniquet, pressure bandage)
  • Whistle (for signaling)
  • Portable phone battery
  • Emergency contact card
  • Small flashlight
  • Hand sanitizer or wipes (for wound cleaning)
  • Comfortable footwear (mobility matters)

Knowledge is the most important gear. Learn basic trauma care. Bleeding control saves lives.

After the Incident: What to Do Once You Reach Safety

Survival does not end when the threat stops.

  • Follow law enforcement instructions
  • Avoid spreading rumors
  • Account for family members
  • Provide aid if trained and safe
  • Seek medical evaluation even if uninjured
  • Expect emotional aftereffects

Psychological survival matters too. Trauma is real. Acknowledge it.

The Prepper Mindset: Calm Beats Fear

Prepared people are not fearless—they are mentally rehearsed. Calm comes from knowing you have options.

Disneyland is designed to feel safe, and most visits will be. But survival preparation is about probability, not optimism.

You do not prepare because something will happen.
You prepare because if it does—you want to live.

Stay aware. Stay calm. Stay ready.

When the Crowd Turns Deadly: How to Survive a Human Stampede

On By The.Daily.ChristianIn personal safetyLeave a comment

Humans are unpredictable, emotional herd animals, and most people walk around like the world magically keeps itself in order. They stare at their phones, wander into crowds without a second thought, and assume that because a venue has security guards, everything is “under control.”

The rest of us—those who actually pay attention—know that control is an illusion. And a fragile one at that.

Human stampedes aren’t rare freak accidents. They’re a natural outcome of packing too many people into too small a space, mixing in fear, noise, confusion, bad planning, and—my personal favorite—sheer stupidity. If you think that sounds harsh, you haven’t seen people trample each other for a Black Friday discount. Trust me, humans don’t need an emergency to act like panicked cattle.

So let’s talk about how to survive a human stampede, because clearly nobody else is going to protect you. If anything, the average person will push you down without blinking if it means they get three inches forward in the chaos.

Welcome to the Reality Nobody Wants to Admit

Crowd crushes and stampedes happen at concerts, sporting events, religious gatherings, parades, protests, and anywhere else humans gather in numbers large enough to overwhelm their own sense of reason. Most people don’t prepare for things like this because they think:
“It won’t happen to me.”

Yeah—tell that to the countless victims who thought the same before they were knocked over and swept away by a five-ton wave of panicked humanity. If you’re reading this, congratulations—you’re at least thinking about it. That’s step one in surviving anything: awareness.

This article won’t sugarcoat things. If you want a cheerful “stay safe!” pamphlet, go read something printed by an events committee. This is the real version—the version that tells you what to do when the crowd turns into a living bulldozer and you’re stuck in the middle of it.

Step 1: Actually Pay Attention to Your Surroundings

Revolutionary, I know.
But you’d be astonished how many people walk into crowds without even scanning their environment. Before you enter any dense crowd, do what a responsible person should always do:

  • Identify exits, plural. If you only know one way out, congratulations—you’re already a liability to yourself.
  • Note barriers like fences, railings, walls, and stages—these become death traps if the crowd surges.
  • Observe the density. If you can’t raise your arms without hitting someone, you’re in the danger zone.
  • Listen for changes in energy—shouting, pushing, sudden movement, or panic.

If you’re thinking, “Wow, that sounds paranoid,” good. Paranoia is just foresight that hasn’t been appreciated yet.

Step 2: When a Crowd Starts Moving, You Move With It—Or You Die

Remember this: you cannot fight a crowd surge head-on. When thousands of pounds of pressure push in one direction, you’re not going to out-muscle it. You move with the flow, gradually and strategically angling toward the side or an exit.

If you plant your feet thinking you can hold your ground like some heroic movie character, the crowd will crush your ribs into your spine. Don’t be a martyr. Be efficient.

Move diagonally, like a fish cutting through a current. You’re not trying to sprint—you’re trying to escape the pressure zone without falling.

Step 3: Protect Your Chest—It’s the Difference Between Living and Suffocating

Most stampede deaths happen due to compressive asphyxiation, not trampling. That means people get squeezed so hard they literally can’t breathe.

The fix?
Create a protective “box” around your chest using your arms.
Put your forearms horizontally in front of your ribcage, fists near your shoulders, making space for your lungs to expand even when the pressure tightens.

If the crowd squeezes in, this posture could buy you the oxygen you need to stay conscious. Consciousness is what keeps you moving. And movement is what keeps you alive.

Step 4: If You Fall, You Don’t Stay Down

This is the nightmare scenario, but it’s survivable if you act fast. Do not curl into a ball like some brochure will tell you. You’re not a turtle and you will not get “protected.” That advice comes from people who have clearly never experienced a crowd crush.

Instead:

  1. Turn onto your side.
  2. Pull your knees toward your chest.
  3. Use your arms and legs to crawl or roll toward open space.
  4. The second you’re on your feet, don’t celebrate—keep moving.

If people fall on top of you, keep your head protected with one arm and use the other to create space to breathe. Survival is ugly. It’s not graceful. It’s not cinematic. It’s pure determination.

Step 5: Don’t Follow the Crowd—Think Past It

People are lemmings. They follow the person in front of them even when it leads them straight into a bottleneck or a dead-end barrier. You have to think faster than the herd.

Look for:

  • Side exits
  • Gaps in barriers
  • Staff-only doors that open toward safety
  • Open spaces where pressure decreases

People cram themselves into the nearest exit because they’re overwhelmed and scared. You, however, have the advantage of thinking before panic hits. Use it.

Step 6: Know the Early Signs of a Stampede Before It Happens

This is where pessimism is your best friend. You assume things can go wrong so you notice when they start going wrong.

Watch for:

  • People pushing but the crowd can’t move forward (classic crush pattern)
  • A sudden wave-like sway through the crowd
  • Security personnel looking tense or rushing
  • Changes in sound: screaming, shouting, or sudden silence
  • A surge from the back (people trying to move before those in front can)

If you sense any of these, leave.
Don’t wait for instructions. Don’t wait for confirmation. By the time officials announce anything, you’re already behind.

Step 7: Don’t Bring Anything You Aren’t Willing to Lose

This is blunt, but you need both hands free. If you’re weighed down with drinks, merch bags, souvenirs, or your tote full of “essentials,” you’re risking your life.

Your priorities in a crowd emergency are:

  1. Breathing
  2. Balance
  3. Mobility

Everything else is clutter. If something becomes a hazard, drop it. Your phone is replaceable. Your spine is not.

Step 8: Mentally Prepare Before You Ever Step Into a Crowd

This is the part people hate hearing because it requires actual effort. If you want to survive the worst situations, you need to train your mindset ahead of time.

Tell yourself:

  • “If something goes wrong, I will move, not freeze.”
  • “My safety is my responsibility.”
  • “I will not rely on others to think for me.”

Being mentally ready makes you react faster than the crowd. In survival situations, seconds matter. Sometimes they’re all you get.

Final Thoughts from a Pessimistic Prepper

Human stampedes aren’t accidents—they’re the result of human behavior amplified by chaos. People panic. People follow blindly. People shove without thinking. And people assume someone else has a plan.

You’re smarter than that.
You’re reading this because you know the world is unpredictable and that most people sleepwalk through danger.

Survival isn’t luck.
Survival is awareness, preparation, and refusing to be one of the oblivious masses who trust the crowd more than their own instincts.

The world may be messy, reckless, and irresponsible—but you don’t have to be.

Stay alert. Stay sharp. Stay alive.