Wal-Mart Employee Crushed To Death By Black Friday Shoppers

In a surreal scene of consumer frenzy this morning, a Wal-Mart employee in suburban New York was crushed to death by a wave of shoppers who broke down the doors just minutes before the store was set to open. It was 4:55 am when the sliding glass doors finally came off their hinges due to the weight of over 2,000 holiday shoppers. As they piled into the store, 34-year-old employee Jdimypai Damour was knocked to the ground and trampled to death. No one stopped to help, not even when police arrived. The officers giving Damour CPR were being shoved and jostled around by shoppers trying to enter the store themselves.

“They were like a stampede,” said Nassau Det. Lt. Michael Fleming. “Hundreds of people walked past him, over him or around him.”

Mr. Damour was eventually taken to nearby Franklin Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Three other shoppers were injured as well, including a woman who was eight months pregnant. She was taken to the hospital for observation.

The crowd actually began forming outside the Wal-Mart at 9 pm on Thursday, and continued to grow throughout the night. Store employees finally called police at 3:30 am to report the massive crowd, and they attempted to organize the line, but were called away to try to help manage crowds outside the local Best Buy and Circut City.

As the opening time came near, six Wal-Mart employees were actually lined up against the locked doors, pushing on them trying to hold back the crowd. They were eventually overwhelmed, the doors snapped loose, and the crowd forced their way in. Several people fell on top of eachother and 34-year-old employee Jdimypai Damour unfortunately ended up at the bottom of the pile.

One shopper who witnessed the event, Kimberly Cribbs, said she was standing near the back of the crowd when people started clamoring their way into store. She said many people were knocked down, and parents had to grab their children by the hand to keep them from being caught in the madness.

“They were falling all over each other,” she said. “It was terrible.”