A 25-year-old student was trapped inside the Humanities Building elevator on the morning of Thursday, March 16, at 9:45 a.m.

Campus police were informed of the incident by the Writing Center after mechanical engineering major Nicole Sakamoto, 19, alerted them when trying to use the elevator to get to the second floor but found the door partially open with Adriana Montano trapped inside.

Montano, who is hard of hearing, attempted to use the elevator, however, when inside and the doors closed, she was stuck inside.

“I knew somebody was going to come,” Montano said. “I’m hard of hearing so I use a [transcriber]… so whenever I press something and someone speaks, my phone gets it and then it just writes everything down.”

Patrol Officers Francisco Esqueda and Benjamin Kim quickly arrived on the scene at 9:48 and got to work trying to free Montano. After fiddling with the elevator door for 4 minutes, officer Esqueda was successful in freeing Montano.

This is not the first time that students have been stuck inside elevators on campus.

“Surprisingly it’s pretty common, we have issues particularly with the external elevators, like in the parking areas, those are more problematic,” Esqueda said.

Kim has also dealt with with elevator issues on campus.

“It’s been maybe at least two years but it has happened before,” Kim said.

The Facilities Planning and Services Department opted to keep the elevator open for use for the time being.

“Our facilities department kind of takes the lead on that kind of stuff and even they are, as you can see, kind of hands off with it,” Esqueda said. “They want to defer it to the elevator company so if they tell us to shut it down we’ll shut it down.”

Robert Brobst, assistant director of the facilities department, said that the college switched companies from Fujitec America to TK Elevator GmbH two years ago and then to Elevators Etc. four months ago.

The permit of the Humanities Building elevator states that it expired in June of 2022 and was last inspected in June of 2021.

“As far as just elevator issues, [they happen] on a monthly basis,” Esqueda said. “As far as someone being in it, that doesn’t happen particularly often.”

Students are encouraged to remain cautious when using the elevators around campus particularly the ones at the parking areas, Esqueda said.

Campus community members are encouraged to call the El Camino College Police Department at (310) 660-3100 or 911 to report unusual activity.

Editor’s Note: An earlier edition of this article misattributed a quote; that has since been corrected on March 16, 2023, at 2:36.