Last Thursday, nine freshman boys were trapped in the T-building elevator, prompting the fire department’s involvement. According to David Dominguez, one of the boys who was stuck, said that he and the other boys saw the elevator open at the end of second period.
“I was walking out, and I saw the elevator was open…so I went in there,” Dominguez said.
Shortly after one of them pressed a button for level one, the elevator started descending until it stopped.
“It starts descending for about a second. Then you hear two loud bangs, right after each other and then it just stops moving. There’s a screen in the elevator and it says out of service, so then we knew that we were stuck,” Dominguez said.
The students had to deal with the heat inside while waiting for help.
“It was hot. It was really hot, the metal wall of the elevator door started having condensation on it. We were in there for about two and a half hours from nutrition to the beginning of lunch,” Dominguez said.
The heat inside made it uncomfortable to be in the elevator so the group of students spent most of their time sitting on the floor and talking.
“It was getting really hot to the point where some of them took their shirts off and we also peed in bottles because we had to go. Yeah, it was bad,” Dominguez said.
The students were able to communicate with administration through the elevator’s emergency phone and did not know the fire department was at school.
“We didn’t know we were just hearing noises… they communicated to us throughout the elevator call thing. We gave them our student IDs so they could call our parents, and to see what students were in there to tell their fourth periods. They’re just telling us to stay calm, and about five minutes before we got out, they told us, back up away from the door so they could open it,” Dominguez said.
After the students got out of the elevator, they felt a mix of relief and discomfort.
“I felt the mixture of the cold air with my body temp and I started getting a little dizzy, so they all had us sit down against the wall, and they brought us Gatorades, and let us calm down, and call our parents,” Dominguez said.
It is widely known that students are only allowed to use the elevator if they have permission from administration or security. The nine students did not receive disciplinary action; instead, administrators took them to another room outside of T-building.
“So we just sat in there and took our statement down, and they brought us lunch, and we stayed in there for lunch so that no one could bother us,” Dominguez said.
Insight reached out to Assistant Principal Sean McCallon and West Covina Fire Department Station 2 for comment and did not receive one by the time of publication.
