Models May Lack Height but Not Drive

More seriously, Cutrone, founder of fashion public relations firm People's Revolution and a regular on MTV's "The Hills" and "The City," told ABCNews.com that the show's producers may have underestimated the desperation some women feel to act out a fantasy they get from watching a reality television show.

"It's sad when people get hurt trying to get a deal, whether at Wal-mart [where a security guard was trampled to death in a Long Island store at the start of the Black Friday Christmas sale] or to be on a TV show," Cutrone said. "It's like a gladiator sport."

Kiara McCarthy, a 19-year-old sophomore at Long Island University, said, "I was sad, truly upset. I don't want to give up, but this definitely set me back a little."

McCarthy has dreamed of being a model since she was 12 but was turned away from many auditions because of her slight stature -- she's just shy of 5-feet-4. She arrived at the auditions around 7 a.m. and stood in line for 10 hours, while her mother and younger sister waited across the street.

From the start, she said the crowd was edgy. Some women had camped out the night before and as the numbers swelled, police and organizers seemed unprepared for the turnout, she added.

With little organization to the lines and women unable to leave their spot to get food or go to the bathroom, tempers flared and scuffles broke out, McCarthy said. When an overheated car began to smoke and backfire on the street next to the line of women, several women yelled "Bomb!" Panic ensued.

McCarthy was standing at the front of the line, next to go in, when "all of a sudden I hear a roar behind me," she said. "All of a sudden people started coming toward me."

She and the young woman standing next to her in line ran just before a barricade toppled over under a sea of women. "I literally got pressed up against the doors," she said.


source :ABC news