Screaming chicken killer

From the Improbable Research blog and Reuters:

BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- Hundreds of chickens have been found dead in east China -- and a court has ruled that the cause of death was the screaming of a four-year-old boy who in turn had been scared by a barking dog, state media reported on Wednesday.

The bizarre sequence events began when the boy arrived at a village home in the eastern province of Jiangsu in the summer with his father who was delivering bottles of gas, the Nanjing Morning Post reported.

A villager was quoted as saying the little boy bent over the henhouse window, screaming for a long time, after being scared by the dog.

"One neighbor told police that he had heard the boy's crying that afternoon and another villager confirmed the boy screaming by the henhouse window," the newspaper said.

A court ruled the boy's screaming was "the only unexpected abnormal sound" and that 443 chickens trampled each other to death in fear.

The boy's father was ordered to pay 1,800 yuan ($230) in compensation to the owner of the chickens.

Is this even possible?

I guess It might be according to this article:
"Effects of Short-Term Whole Body Vibration on Animals with Particular Reference to Poultry," Graham B. Scott, World's Poultry Science Journal, vol. 50, no. 1, March 1994, pp. 25-38.

Actually I don't know if it's possible according to that article... I'm way too lazy (busy?) to read about chickens but here's the abstract if you're even lazier than I am and don't even want to click on the link to the article:

Animals are exposed to various vibration and movement stimuli during transport. The vibrations are a potential source of stress in birds because the resonances they set up in the internal organs are likely to be major aversive stimuli. This paper considers the possible effects of vibration on broilers in transport by reference to the known effects of vibration on other species. The fundamental frequency of poultry transporters is between 1 and 2 Hz, with a secondary peak of 10 Hz and a chassis vibration in the lateral axis of 12-18 Hz. Suggested resonance frequencies for the viscera of broiler chickens exposed to vertical vibration are around 10 Hz, and so coincide with the secondary peak. Skeletal muscle responds to movement and vibration in order to maintain postural stability and reduce the effects of resonance. Standing birds maintain stability by wing extension and by flapping or squatting. Involuntary muscle and cardiac muscle are also affected by vibration with blood circulation, heart beat and possibly gut control changing as a result. Vibration-induced vasodilatation may occur, as may blood pooling in the organs, pulmonary damage and impaired thermoregulation. Biochemical changes resulting from vibration could have adverse effects on meat quality in birds unable to recover before slaughter.