NEW YORK - A worker was killed in the crush Friday after a throng of shoppers eager for post-Thanksgiving bargains burst through the doors at a suburban Wal-Mart, authorities said.
Nassau County police said the 34-year-old man was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead at about 6 a.m. ET, an hour after the store in Valley Stream on Long Island opened.
A police statement said a throng of shoppers "physically broke down the doors, knocking him to the ground." The exact cause of death "will be determined by the medical examiner's office," the police stated.
Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here
A co-worker said the man was "bum-rushed by 200 people," according to the New York Daily News. "They took the doors off the hinges," said Jimmy Overby. "He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too ... I literally had to fight people off my back."
Police added that "a 28-year-old pregnant female was also transported to an area hospital for observation."
Shopper Jessica Keyes told the Daily News that she saw the woman being knocked down near where the worker lay dying.
According to Keys, when paramedics arrived they told the woman that "there's nothing we can do. The baby is gone."
But a police spokesman later said both the woman and her unborn child were doing fine.
Other shoppers said people kept entering the store as emergency crews attended the woman and the worker.
"They were working on him, but you could see he was dead," the Daily News quoted shopper Halcyon Alexander as saying. "People were still coming through."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27955316
