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ONLINE 06-OCT-00 Firefighters free students from elevator by Mark Lai for the thresher Rob Gaddi/Thresher Brown College junior James Kretlow leaves the Sid Richardson College elevator where he and four other students were trapped for more than an hour Saturday night. The Houston Fire Department came to rescue the students. Almost half an hour after they were called, Houston Fire Department firefighters freed five students trapped in a Sid Richardson College elevator Saturday. The students were in the elevator for a total of one hour. At 9:46 p.m. the elevator stalled near the fifth floor of Sid, and the display lights went out. Students pressed the call button, connecting them to a police dispatcher. The police then called elevator technicians. When the technicians did not arrive after about 35 minutes, police called HFD to release the students from the elevator. Police told the firefighters to enter the campus at Entrance 3, but three fire trucks came in through Entrance 8. Because too many cars blocked the fire engines' route from Entrance 8 to Sid, the trucks were forced to exit the campus and re-enter at Entrance 3. HFD firefighter Doug Switch, who works at one of the stations responsible for covering the Rice campus, said firefighters are better able to locate buildings on campus when Rice police officers meet them at a gate. "Most of the time they give us a gate number, and usually if security is there, they can guide us in," Switch said. Also, because fire engines were not in emergency mode, it took them longer to maneuver through traffic than it would have if their sirens had been on, University Police Chief Bill Taylor said. Over the summer, Sid elevators were revamped at a cost of about $220,000. The elevators' cables and software were replaced, Mechanical Repair Supervisor Ronnie Cox said. Technicians found that the elevator stalled because the governor, a safety device that shuts down the elevator if the momentum produced is unsafe, tripped from an over-clocked speed. Cox said jumping up and down in a moving elevator is a common cause of stalled elevators because it can produce a force up to 10 times a person's weight. "The technician was under the impression that someone had been jumping up and down," Cox said. The five students at Sid said they were not jumping in the elevator. Cox said the elevator's governor could possibly be recalibrated to be less sensitive. Three of the students stuck in the elevator - Brown College juniors James Kretlow and Jared Thigpen and Sid senior Christian Lockwood - had been stuck in a Brown elevator for an hour and 40 minutes the previous Wednesday night. The students sang songs to pass the time. "I wish there had been hot, naked girls stuck on the elevator with me, but instead it was my worthless friends," Lockwood said. The five students were on their way to Willy's Pub when they became trapped in the elevator. Despite the hour delay, they continued to the Pub after firefighters released them. "We were worried that we wouldn't get one of the [60 one dollar] pitchers," Sid senior Marc Zubick, one of the students stuck on the elevator, said. - back - Search the Thresher pages: Enter your search terms: Copyright © 2000 The Rice Thresher. All Rights Reserved. This document may be distributed electronically, provided that it is distributed in its entirety and includes this notice. However, it cannot be reprinted without the express written permission of: The Rice Thresher, Rice University MS-524, PO Box 1892, Houston, TX 77251-1892, USA. The Thresher Online Project -- ethresh@listserv.rice.edu