Child’s bug scare triggers stampede among Beyoncé fans at Atlanta train station
An Atlanta train station filled with Beyoncé concertgoers had a stampede. The likely cause? A girl's intense reaction to an insect.
NBC News, citing the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, reported that nine people were injured when an escalator at Vine City Station became overcrowded just after midnight of the Cowboy Carter concert at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on July 14.
Among the injured, one person sustained a broken ankle, while seven others were hospitalized with minor injuries such as cuts and scrapes. Another individual declined medical transport.
Stephany Fisher, Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority senior director of communications, said the police at the scene heard a scream, and witnesses recalled “the person who screamed was reacting to an insect."
“I believe there’s also video on TikTok of a woman claiming it was a 10-year-old relative who screamed when she saw a bug,” Fisher said. “Video from the rail station clearly shows people reacting and running, but you can’t see who screamed or what they were reacting to.”
According to WXIA, MARTA Police Chief Scott Kreher said the chaos was caused by a girl who saw a cockroach or a “palmetto bug."
It triggered a chain reaction in which people began screaming and rushing to leave, triggering the stampede.
“There was someone who started to scream outside of the station. She was startled by a bug outside, outside the large crowd,” MARTA's acting chief executive officer Rhonda Allen told the board.
“Imagine a group of people saying, ‘I want to get down I want to get down,’ began to usher themselves down the escalator,” she added.
During the stampede, the escalator temporarily sped up, then suddenly stopped. Allen explained that it was due to the weight and movement of the crowd members suddenly leaving. She noted that the escalator had passed an inspection days earlier.
She told the MARTA board that there will be tighter crowd control and more staff to prevent similar incidents moving forward. "We're going to have a more aggressive approach to how we’re staffing these events," she said.
Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter Tour kicked off last April in Los Angeles. It features songs from her Cowboy Carter album that followed her hit 2022 project Renaissance. She won album of the year at the 2024 Grammy Awards for that.
Beyoncé's four-night concert in Atlanta was held on July 10, 11, 13, and 14. She has two final performances set for July 25 and 26 in Las Vegas.
