In February 2003, days after The Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island had claimed scores of lives-the final death toll would eventually reach 100-The New York Times ran an update under the headline "Nightclub Panic." Five years later, The Boston Globe, in its anniversary coverage of the event, noted the mourning by the "loved ones and friends of those who died in the mad panic inside The Station nightclub." Video footage from inside the club that night tells a different story. The club is packed with more than 400 people who've come to see a popular rock band, which begins its show with a display of pyrotechnics. The pyrotechnics ignite the club's ceiling, and fire and smoke immediately begin to spread. The video shows people, clearly aware of the fire, as they begin making their way toward the main exit. Their progress is calm and orderly; nowhere in the video, which can be viewed on YouTube, can patrons be seen acting aggressively to escape the building. Nor is anyone apparently behaving in an irrational or illogical manner suggesting panic.
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