Heated scramble for Lebron James Nike shoes lands woman on injured list - Boston Herald

A loyal Celtics [team stats] fan who crossed team lines to buy the newest LeBron James Nike shoe for her nephew said she fractured her arm in a Saugus mall stampede of crazed sneaker fanatics yesterday morning.

“I felt like road kill,” said Pattie DeRoche, 45, of Lynnfield, who said she also suffered cuts to her elbows, wrist and knees. “I have bruised knees. They kicked me in the back. It was awful.”

DeRoche said she donned her Celtics T-shirt and waited outside Square One Mall at 2:30 a.m. yesterday in the hopes of buying the $250 LeBron 9 Elite as a birthday present for her nephew, a diehard Celtics fan who collects high-end basketball sneakers.

Mall officials confirmed the shoe rush but directed calls to Regan Communications, which referred inquiries to Saugus police. Mall security told Saugus police that a woman had fallen down and was treated at the scene for cuts and scrapes, according to Lt. Leonard Campanello.

A Saugus police detail officer stationed at the mall to help with crowd control helped the woman restore her place in line after the incident, Campanello said.

“The problem was they only had 20 pairs of sneakers and there were 150 people there,” said DeRoche who told the Herald she was eighth or ninth in a line of men in their 20s and 30s as workers readied to open the mall at about 5:30 a.m.

“It started out that people were nice and standing there, and then all of a sudden there was a stampede. Thank God Saugus police and mall security came over, pulled me up and got me inside.”

DeRoche said her nephew, 25-year-old Jack Feeley, was upset when he found out she went to the mall, because he had warned her about the crowds that would show up.

The so-called sneakerhead culture, which began in the late 1980s with the release of the first Nike Air Jordan shoes, attracts avid collectors and those who profit by reselling the shoes online. There have been reports in other cities of police quelling chaotic crowds at sneaker releases.

“It was very unsettling that no one even helped her. They just stomped right over her to get to head of the line,” said DeRoche’s sister, Janet Feeley, who said she drove DeRoche to Melrose-Wakefield Hospital.

DeRoche said she’s happy she was able to buy the shoes but doubts she’ll do it again by herself.

“I’m lucky my injuries aren’t more serious,” she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.