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Campus Police and the Fire Protection Division said they remain confident in emergency response times, even after several students have been trapped in malfunctioning elevators multiple times over the past three weeks and have had to wait for assistance.
Chris Herndon, a freshman in civil engineering, said he was stuck in an elevator in Bowen Residence Hall for an hour and 10 minutes during the first week in October.
“I was pretty mad, and I felt really inconvenienced,” Herndon said.
According to Capt. Jon Barnwell of Campus Police, the reason why the elevator calls take so long to be responded to is because an elevator maintenance personnel must be contacted to repair the elevator malfunction.
“When elevator calls come in, we verify that everyone is OK. Then we contact the elevator maintenance personnel who usually get there somewhere between 45 minutes to an hour,” Barnwell said.
He said if there is a medical emergency requiring assistance, the situation is different.
“If there is a medical emergency, we will get in the elevator as soon as possible, but if everyone is OK, we don’t want to tear up the elevator if it is just a malfunction,” he said.
Officials from the Fire Protection Division said they have a similar response to elevator calls.
Bill Stevenson, the University Fire Marshal, said that the department takes the call and determine if they go to the scene by simply listening to the person’s voice to see if they are panicked or upset.
“If they are, we are sent to calm the person down, to make sure they are OK,” Stevenson said.
According to Stevenson, if the elevator maintenance personnel have not responded in 15 minutes and the department gets the idea that the people in the elevator are getting stressed, they are sent to open the doors, since in some situations, they have the correct equipment to get them out.
“We have keys that open the doors, but that sometimes isn’t enough, depending on where the elevator car is,” he said. “If all else fails, the Fire Department has all the heavy-duty equipment to get them out, but it is very labor intensive, and it is very fortunate that we haven’t had to go to that extreme.”
Herndon said he thinks the fact that he was trapped at a late hour probably contributed to the lengthy response time but said he still feels there could be a solution to that problem.
“The University needs to have someone here for the elevators all the time since it probably occurs pretty often,” Herndon said.
As for other emergencies that occur on campus, both Barnwell and Stevenson assert they make emergency response times in a timely fashion.
“We can be at any location on any of the three campuses in two minutes,” Barnwell said. “However, there are many variables that may change the response time. We may be at the location in two minutes, but if we have to, for example, make it to the ninth floor in the D.H. Hill building, it is going to take a little longer.”
Stevenson agreed there are several conditions that may affect response time.
“There are a lot of variables. Usually, it can be anywhere from one minute to three minutes, but it depends how many calls we get, our staffing level at the time and where we’re at on campus,” he said.
Natalie Griffith, a freshman in communication, said she is very happy with the emergency response times on campus.
In regards to a false fire alarm that occurred in Watauga Residence Hall a few weeks ago, Griffith said, “I was really impressed with how fast the police and Fire Department got to the building, and there wasn’t even a real fire.”
According to Stevenson, he is confident in the emergency responders’ response times on campus.
“On the average day, our response times are just as good as anyone else out there,” he said.