Fire trucks and ambulances stormed the University’s campus Wednesday afternoon to rescue people who had been affected by the unexpected two-hour, campus-wide power outage. The outage left several people injured or stranded before power kicked back on shortly before 7 p.m. Lauren Ellermann, mass communication freshman, was one of the students who was trapped in an elevator in Evangeline Hall. Ellermann, who said she is claustrophobic, was caught between the second and third floors of Evangeline Hall for more than 40 minutes. On the other side of the building several more students were caught in another elevator for almost an hour. “I was frantically pushing the emergency button,” Ellermann said. Ellermann, who didn’t have her cell phone with her at the time, said she began “frantically crying.” She said friends and dormmates crowded around the third-floor elevator entrance to comfort her while Facility Services workers were called. Ellermann said a Residential Life worker helped pry open the door, then jumped down into the elevator to push her out. The other students trapped in the elevator across the dorm waited for Facility Services. Mimi Lavalle, communication manager for Residential Life, said Residential Life responded immediately by calling Facility Services employees who were able to rescue the students in a timely manner. Across campus in the Life Sciences building, a female Facility Services worker fell down a darkened staircase and injured her leg. The woman, who refused to give her name, waited with members of the Baton Rouge Fire Department and LSUPD officials until an EMS vehicle arrived with a stretcher to take her to a hospital. Corey Legrange, BRFD firefighter, said the injured Facility Services worker was the fourth call BRFD had answered in the past hour. It also responded to a four-car pile-up at the intersection of West Parker Drive and Highland Road caused by a stoplight outage. Legrange said BRFD received back-to-back phone calls following the power outage.
—–Contact Rebekah Allen at [email protected]