Jamie Hughes
Associate Photography Editor
More than 10 individual units from multiple fire departments responded to an incident at Millersville University’s Caputo Hall Friday afternoon.
According to Marc Harris, the Dean of Millersville’s College of Science and Technology, the cause of the incident was a mechanical problem with Caputo Hall’s elevator. The fire alarm was pulled at around 4 p.m., and within the hour, the surrounding streets were filled with fire trucks and other emergency personnel.
Santina Cerquetelli, a student who takes classes in Caputo, was almost trapped in the same elevator before the incident. Earlier in the day, she called the elevator from the first floor but heard a loud noise come from the elevator as it reached the first floor, leading her to take the stairs.
Later, she took the elevator down from the fourth floor to the first floor. It began to shake on the way down, and when it reached the first floor, the door for the first floor would not open.
“So I hit the button to get the doors to open, and they would open maybe an inch and then stop,” Cerquetelli said.
Cerquetelli began to panic due to not having cell reception in the elevator. She did not use the elevator’s emergency phone out of fear that it would set off the building’s fire alarms. She eventually decided to move the elevator to the second floor, as all the floors besides the first use a different door. She was able to escape that way, and informed the receptionist in the Dean’s office of the incident.
Not long afterward, according to Harris, an “electrical smell” was detected coming from the elevator, and the fire alarms were pulled. Jonathan Koefoot, a student who was at the scene, heard on the scanners during the incident that an exhaust fan on the elevator had failed. The building was evacuated without any further incident.
Fire department personnel ascended to the building’s roof using a ladder truck and were seen using pokers to create holes in the roof. According to the online dispatch monitor, about 14 individual units responded to the incident, including at least six engines from fire departments ranging from Millersville to Blue Rock, as well as fire police and rescue personnel.
