Safety Concerns Arise Over USC Fan Field Rush

Five people were taken to the hospital Saturday after USC's win against Stanford. Students and fans rushed onto the Coliseum field.

Photographer Dan Avila was one of the five people taken to the hospital after the game.

"Someone either pushed me or hit me from the behind and I fell over and created a sort of domino effect," explained Avila. "People started tripping and landing on top of me and pretty soon I was under a big pile."

Avila said he suffered a badly bruised leg after the incident.

The Coliseum has a capacity of over 90-thousand people, but there aren't huge openings for mass amounts of people to run on the field. Students knocked over a gate to get on the field faster.

"They started pushing the fence," explained Deputy Chief David Carlisle. "As soon as that clock hit zero that fence went down."

Stanford fans rushed their field last weekend, but had wide openings to run through. Their Department of Public Safety said this is one of the reasons why they had no reported injuries.

"If it seems like they're gonna rush the field, we just don't want them to get trampled," said Sergeant Cohen Cert. "We try to open up every avenue if they are going to get on the field."