Today’s Panicked Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
By 1:30 a.m. on Monday, October 9, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire, which began at 8:40 p.m. the previous night, could no longer be stopped, only watched. In their panic to escape the city, people trampled one another. Even as they tried to outrun the flames, women stopped to give birth in the street, their labors induced by fear and excitement; some mothers and newborns burned to death on the spot.
Culled from: Great Chicago Fires: Historic Blazes That Shaped a City
Also, in “Almanac of World Crime” it says that a great number of the people who died in the Chicago fire were looters who had gotten drunk on stolen liquor and were then incapable of recognizing the danger or of saving themselves. Some citizens were also murdered by looters.