A Carleton student had to be carried down six flights of stairs in his wheelchair after a power outage shut down the elevators in Robertson Hall Dec. 4.
During a Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) council meeting, the power went out and Shawn Humphrey, an arts and social sciences councillor, had to be carried down from the sixth floor by his fellow councillors.
Humphrey said he warned Campus Safety in advance that he would need help getting out of the building at the end of the meeting, as elevators were not powered by backup during the outage.
“I did warn them that I would be calling them . . . probably around 9 or 10, or in an emergency, to get out,” he said. “They said that was fine.”
Humphrey said when he called at 10 p.m., no one answered the phone, as all security personnel were out chasing a suspect on campus.
“It seemed odd they would leave everything empty in their office and wouldn’t be able to answer any emergency calls,” he said.
Humphrey said they tried calling Carleton Foot Patrol, but their phone wasn’t working during the outage.
Finally, Humphrey said two CUSA executives and several councillors helped get him and his wheelchair down the stairs.
“The main concern I had was that for anyone with accessibility issues, it seems odd that elevators aren’t powered by the backup power,” he said.
Humphrey also said security should have left someone to cover the phone, instead of dispatching all units to chase a suspect.
“We didn’t get security help. I didn’t think that was very good,” he said. “Security should have left at least one person to cover the rest of campus, because there was a security concern all across campus.”
Matthew Cole, manager of Attendant Services, said there is a protocol for evacuating students with accessibility issues during emergencies and power outages.
He said students have to call either Attendant Services or campus safety, after which trained attendants would bring him or her down with an evacuation chair.
“We certainly do have a procedure in place for when a student is stranded in a building, and the elevators are not working,” he said. “Perhaps we need to make that more widely known. The university has spent considerable funds to buy an evacuation chair.”
Nancy Delcellier, assistant director of Environmental Health and Safety, said via email that Humphrey should not have been carried down the stairs.
“Carrying an individual down the stairwell actually put both the student and the persons carrying the student at significant risk,” she said. “A fall and/or ergonomic injury are very real possibilities from this type of activity.”
She said in emergencies like live fires, where there is potential risk, emergency responders are directed to this location as an immediate priority.
“In this particular situation, there was no immediate risk to the individual, although certainly an inconvenience,” she said.
Delcellier said the councillors should have considered other options instead, “especially as there was no risk to stay on the sixth floor,” such as walking to the Campus Safety office inside Robertson Hall.
“There is always at least one individual in the dispatch location, including Dec. 4, the night of the power outage,” she said.
She said if contacting campus safety was not possible, the next option would have been to call 911.
