The woman was among dozens of people on Friday searching for lost items at Navy Pier in the aftermath of a chaotic end to Chicago’s annual fireworks show.

On the verge of tears, she explained to staffers at the pier’s lost-and-found that she was scheduled to fly to New York and needed the identification she had lost Thursday night when word of an active shooter spread through crowds pouring out of the pier’s Fourth of July celebration, causing panic and pandemonium.

Witnesses said cries from young children pierced the air. Parents desperately searched for lost children. Hostesses in a nearby restaurant hid under tables. Some people even tried to hide in a freezer and storage area at the restaurant, according to two servers who work there.

“It was pure chaos,” said Rachel Schar, a 22-year-old who works at Harry Caray’s Tavern, where fleeing crowds stormed to in the confusion. “I literally thought I was going to die.”

At a news conference Friday, police officials said a fight between at least two individuals shortly after 10 p.m. led to a young man pulling a knife and stabbing three people near a McDonald’s outside of Navy Pier.

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At about the same time that crowds shuffled out of Navy Pier following the fireworks display, police received unconfirmed reports that someone had lit a firework in a group of people. Amid the commotion, private security officers assigned to the event signaled a possible active shooter threat and began telling the crowd to take shelter, inciting a “stampede-like” scenario, said Chief of Patrol Fred Waller. At least 17 people were injured, and 31 juveniles were arrested on disorderly conduct-related charges, police said.

“I was there personally, and I can tell you things were very chaotic,” Waller told reporters. “In the end, there was never an active shooter, and no one was shot.”

Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson was reluctant to criticize the private security guards for apparently sparking the chaotic scene, saying, “We want to err on the side of caution.” He said he planned to talk with them.

Johnson said police had the proper resources and protocols in place when the incident unfolded Thursday night. Everyone who entered Navy Pier had gone through security, he noted.

“Of course, we cannot control someone popping a firecracker off in a large group of people,” he told reporters. “That’s something that we simply can’t control. But what we know is we always have to have the proper communication.”

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The fight that led to the stabbing broke out among a group of males after some of them flashed gang signs around 10:10 p.m. in the 600 block of East Grand Avenue, police said. A 14-year-old boy was stabbed in the arm and rib, and another 14-year-old boy was stabbed in the armpit. They were both taken to Lurie Children’s Hospital, where they were stabilized.

Using the many cameras in the area, detectives “have very good leads” about the identity of the stabber, according to police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.

Schar’s co-worker Ashley Calvillo said the restaurant was wrecked into a jumble of toppled furniture and silverware by the crush of people who fled the restaurant to escape the threat of an active shooter.

More than a dozen pairs of shoes in all sizes were left on the floor. Some patrons even left their strollers in the mad rush to leave.

On Friday, emotions were running high as streams of people returned to the pier to look for items they had lost. One man returned to pick up a stroller he had left behind Thursday night as he grabbed his baby and ran to hide underneath a table at Giordano’s, another restaurant on the pier.

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In a statement, Navy Pier officials called the incident a “tragic event” and said they are working with Chicago police “to ensure that we are doing all that we can to keep people safe while they are visiting the Pier.”

“Our hearts go out to all who were affected, and we send our thoughts and prayers to those recovering,” the statement said.

Angela Lewis, of Crown Point, Ind., and Antwine Johnson, of Indianapolis, were visiting Chicago with family to see the fireworks. Amid the chaos, they lost a cellphone.

The panicked family scattered when they saw the stampede and heard people warning of a shooting,

“We all got separated,” Lewis said. “I didn’t hear any gunshots. I don’t even know what happened, but I was more concerned about the stampede of people running all over each other, even if there wasn’t a shooter.”

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Johnson picked up his three little cousins — a 3-year-old and 6-year-old twins — and ran into a nearby restaurant. They couldn’t get into the kitchen, so they knocked on the door of a locked bathroom door.

“My mom started yelling, ‘We have babies, we have babies,’ and they let us in,” he said.

Johnson estimated 15 people, including an infant, hid in the single-stall bathroom. After a short period of time, a second wave of people tried to enter the bathroom.

“People started knocking on the door, yelling names, trying to find people,” Johnson said. “Everyone was like, ‘Don’t open the door! Don’t open the door!’”

Lewis said she felt safe entering Navy Pier on the Fourth because of the tight security — all bags were checked on entry and guests scanned with a metal detector wand.

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But after the incident, she said, she won’t return for crowded events like the fireworks show or Taste of Chicago.

“We thought, ‘Nothing’s ever happened here,’” Lewis said as she looked Friday for the cellphone. “Even though we knew there’d be a lot of people, we thought it would be OK.”

BTW, these are all of the strollers abandoned during the @NavyPier stampede last night. A lot of clothes and other items also here. @WGNMorningNews #LostAndFound pic.twitter.com/RdJUUQcKtI

— Nancy Loo (@NancyLoo) July 5, 2019

Richard and Dematra Lowe, from Tulsa, Okla., were visiting Chicago with their daughter, Carly. The family ate dinner at Harry Caray’s and had just left when a “roaring crowd” began running toward them from behind.

“We were trying to run,” Carly said. “We finally figured out that it was probably just mass hysteria.”

Despite the previous night’s violence, they returned to Navy Pier on Friday morning to ride the Seadog boat cruise.