Severe weather walloped the Tri-State Tuesday morning, April 2, damaging Marshall’s new baseball stadium and trapping a person in an elevator.
Storms passing through Marshall’s campus resulted in a brief power outage that caused the elevators in Corbly Hall to stop working.
Jana Tigchelaar, director of graduate studies in the English department, said she observed an individual become trapped while attempting to descend in one of Corbly Hall’s elevators.
“We had all gathered in the lobby area and had been standing there for about 10 minutes when the power flickered,” she said. “We then heard people buzzing the alarm.”
Tigchleaar went on to say she and other individuals were attempting to prevent people from ascending in the elevator but had missed the individual trying to descend.
“I called 911, and the fire department came,” Tigchleaar said. “She was stuck in there for about 20 minutes, although it probably seemed longer to her.”
The firefighter who responded to the call, Captain Heath Hesson of the Huntington Fire Department, said his crew was at another call on the 31st Street Bridge when the call from Corbly Hall came in.
“When we got there, the elevator in Corbly Hall was stuck on the first floor and the doors wouldn’t open,” Hesson said. “There was one subject stuck in there.”
Hesson went on to say it was roughly nine minutes total to arrive at the scene and rescue the subject. His team brought a halligan, a tool similar to a crow bar, to help pry the inner door.
Hesson said the individual appeared to not be rattled by the incident.
“She was actually very calm,” he said.
Likewise, Tigchleaar said the previously trapped individual explained she took the elevator in an effort to quickly pick up her brother.
In addition, Lieutenant Dicky Parker of MUPD said they were responding to several elevator calls on campus.
“One of our calls was to an elevator in Old Main,” Parker said. “We had to go to the calls one by one.”
Meanwhile, the fence surrounding the Jack Cook Field, Marshall’s new baseball stadium, came loose from the foundation during the storm. In addition, equipment littered the field.
The damages were not limited to Marshall’s campus; the village of Proctorville in Ohio closed to non-resident or non-emergency traffic, and damages were reported near the mall in Barboursville.
