Fans Rush Field, 75 Are Hurt : Wisconsin: Seven are reported in critical condition after victory celebration in Madison turns to tragedy.

About 75 were injured, seven critically, when chain-link and iron-rail fences collapsed as about 12,000 fans poured onto Wisconsin’s football field after Saturday’s victory over Michigan.

Spectators in the end-zone portion of Camp Randall Stadium pushed forward as the Badgers won, 13-10. Metal rail fences lining the front of the stands collapsed. A chain-link fence about five feet high separating a track from the playing field also went down, pulling up its concrete footings.

Patrolmen struggled to clear the crowd so that paramedics could reach the injured, some of them on the field and others still in the stands. The cheering ceased within 10 minutes.

“We tried to get some of the people back so the people below them who were getting trampled could get out,” said John Brogan, a Dane County deputy sheriff.

“It was just too loud for them to hear. People kept falling on top of each other,” he said.

Said freshman Jennifer Hartzell, 18: “People were pushing down. I was pushed down, too, but the people in front were mainly the people who got trampled. Everybody rushed onto the field and maybe seven people were on the goal post rocking it.”

The goal posts stood. They are specially designed to withstand assault.

Susan Riseling, Wisconsin security chief, said the security strategy “didn’t work.” Anticipating fans on the field if Wisconsin won, police were instructed to fall back and surround the goal posts, preventing fans from injuring themselves by climbing on them.

“There are not enough police in all of Dane County to handle 12,000 surging people in that section of stadium,” she said. “We have seen nothing like the surge that we saw today before in Madison.”

Said Pat Richter, Badger athletic director: “The people on the bottom had nowhere to go” as fans from the upper seats pressed toward the field. “It’s tragic. You can see the devastation and it makes you sick.

“Somebody probably started some movement on the top. People started falling down and leaning down. All the rows were leaning on each other. . . . It was pent-up emotion, and it got out of control.”