What goes up must come down, except for Leo Ma, a first-year student, who got stuck in an elevator in Fairbanks Hall on Oct. 20.
“I was joyriding the elevator in Fairbanks Hall on a Monday afternoon, and I was making a few laps with it,” Ma said. “Then one of the laps, I was going down from the third floor to the basement, and then when the elevator was about to land in the basement, it halted and the elevator just froze.”
While it took Oregon State University’s Department of Public Safety just 15 minutes to get to him, it took around an hour to get him out.
“My fingers were trembling. I was trying not to panic because I’ve seen this happen to some other people on videos,” Ma said.
Ma is no stranger to elevators, with over 300 videos on his YouTube channel, ObsidianElevators, where he posts videos of elevators from all over the world, including those at OSU.
It isn’t a frequent occurrence that students get stuck in elevators like Ma did, but it isn’t uncommon either.
As of Nov. 5, OSU’s Department of Public Safety has received 68 calls from people stuck in an elevator on campus since Jan. 1.
After receiving a call, DPS aims to get a Public Safety Officer to the trapped student within ten minutes, but getting the student out of the elevator can take longer.
“Monday through Friday, we have our own elevator technician that’s on campus and on call, and he’s able to just go around campus and be there very quickly,” Campus Dispatcher Amanda Moore said.
If it’s after hours, though, Otis, an elevator manufacturing company, sends one of their technicians out, which can take closer to an hour.
Otis did not respond to questions about why elevators get stuck frequently at this time.
In order to practice being safe in elevators, students should follow these guidelines: no excessive movement, try not to hold the doors open for too long and try to only go to the necessary floor, according to Ma and DPS.
“Sometimes if the elevator looks too crowded, it might be worth it to not get in it,” DPS Captain Jefferson Schrader said.
If you do happen to get trapped in an elevator, do not panic. Simply press the call button and wait for the dispatcher to ask you questions, according to Schrader. If the call button isn’t working, try calling DPS on your phone.
DPS encourages those stuck not to be alarmed if it takes a few moments to hear from a dispatcher. “Sometimes there can be like a five-second delay from when they press that emergency button before we get the call,” Campus Dispatcher Trevor Bartholomew said.
Even after his experience on Oct. 20, Ma maintains that he will continue to enjoy the elevators around campus.
“They’re safe to ride. Being stuck in one is usually just a matter of luck, because the elevator that I was trapped in was one of the more modern elevators here,” he said.