South Korean police officers stand guard at the scene in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, Oct. 30. A mass of mostly young people celebrating Halloween festivities in Seoul became trapped and crushed as the crowd surged into a narrow alley, killing dozens of people and injuring dozens of others in South Korea’s worst disaster in years. Lee Jin-man / Associated Press
A Bowdoin College student studying abroad in Seoul, South Korea, is safe after avoiding a deadly crowd surge that killed more than 150 people Saturday night, according to Scott Hood, the school’s senior vice president for communications and public affairs.
College officials managed to connect with junior Emma Fortier to confirm her well-being after a Halloween celebration gave way to tragedy in the Seoul’s Itaewon neighborhood, Hood said.
“It sounds like it was a horrible situation,” he said. “We’re very relieved that she is okay.”
Fortier, an Orono High School graduate, attended the popular Itaewon event with a friend on Sunday night, according to a report from the Bangor Daily News.
The report described Fortier’s struggle to escape from a packed crowd of 100,000 people that lined every inch of the district’s narrow streets.
“We were just pushed along with the crowd and crammed against everyone and people kept tripping in the crowd,” she recounted in text messages to her family. “If you fell you would just get trampled because no one can stop.”
While Fortier made it safely to her apartment, at least 153 partygoers, including two Americans, died after a crowd surge sparked a deadly stampede, according to the U.S. Embassy in Seoul.
Fortier is the only Bowdoin student currently studying in the area, according to Hood. In total, 103 students are studying abroad this semester, down from around 140-150 prior to the pandemic.
Though Bowdoin does not run its own study abroad programs, college officials reach out to students studying abroad through partner programs when emergencies like disease outbreaks, natural disasters and wars put them at risk, Hood said.
“It’s not all pandemics and political upheaval,” he said. “Any time there is something that happens where we know we have students, we always check.”
In extreme cases, like when COVID infections emerged in Italy in early 2020, officials from the Off-Campus Study office, dean of students’ office, treasurer’s office and other departments will coordinate over several days as situations unfold, according to Hood.
In this instance, Bowdoin officials were able to quickly get in touch with Fortier after news of the tragedy broke, Hood said.
“We followed our practices and procedures to check in with her, and she’s been responsive,” he said. “I think the process works.”
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