Even before the first pass was thrown, the big game set a Super Bowl record — for New Jersey Transit, which packed fans in so tightly at its Secaucus station that several collapsed.
Emergency medical workers pushed their way through the overheated crowd Sunday afternoon to treat passengers at Secaucus Junction, the gateway station to MetLife Stadium.
By 4:30 p.m., a full two hours before the game, 27,000 passengers rode trains from Secaucus to the stadium — breaking the previous record of 22,000 set for the 2009 U2 concert.
Long lines came to a standstill in front of airport-style security machines and passengers were squeezed together in an enclosed stairwell.
“We were all packed like sardines back there,” said C’na (cq)Williams, 41, a case worker from Tacoma.
An NJ Transit spokeswoman said station crowding was due to holding back passengers to “control the flow” on the trains.
Once they arrived at MetLife, fans were greeted by makeshift tailgaters who managed to get around pregame parking-lot-partying rules. Law-enforcement authorities had said there would be no tailgating before the game and that fans would be limited to pregame celebrations in the confines of their single parking spot.
But Greg Matzel, 48, a real-estate developer from Colts Neck, NJ, washed down McDonald’s Mighty Wings with Blue Moon Mountain Abbey Ale and Smirnoff malt beverages outside a 10-passenger white Cadillac limousine.
“Nobody’s having any barbecues,” a cop at the stadium said about the modified parties.
“Nobody’s throwing around any beanbags and beach balls.”
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