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Subject:  Problems leaving horse guards
[Post New]24/04/2012 16:57:29
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Dan

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Joined: 24/04/2012 16:55:27
Messages: 1
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I would like to bring to your attention the chaos that occurred at the end of the marathon. Best case scenario was that it was inconvenient. Worst case hundreds of people could have been crushed.

Myself and my parents were in the centre of approx 300 to 400 thousand people most of which were trying to get out of horse guards via 3 small exits.

There were no signs, no virgin representatives, no security and no police. There was absolutely no control over a potentially lethal situation. When it began to rain the crowd surged forward, at this point the army tried to close the doors due to overcrowding!!! An unbelievable situation compounded by reps at the finish line telling everybody to go to charring cross via the horse guards arch ways.

Was there any evacuation plan? What if there had been a threat of some description? There was absolutely no control whatsoever. Being a runner I was incredibly impressed by the organisation of the race. Unfortunately the only thing people will talk about (and what I will remember) are the small kids being crushed and being shoulder to shoulder with people beginning to panic. Not what you want after 26 miles of running!

I would like to see the result of any investigation made into the incident if possible. On the plus side everything else was absolutely perfect, the problem is people always remember the bad parts.

Ironically enough I was running for st George's heart unit where my dad recently had triple bypass surgery. If it had got much worse I would not have liked to think how it would have affected him.