When John McPherson, associate director of scholarships and financial aid, heard the fire alarm go off in Ball State University’s Lucina Hall Friday morning, he assumed it was just another drill.
But it wasn’t.
The building’s elevator motor, located in the basement, burned up and filled the area with smoke. McPherson, who uses a wheelchair, had to make an important decision from his second floor office: Stay or go.
He decided to stay inside.
“This is the first time that there’s actually been a real fire,” McPherson, who’s been at the university since 1993, said. “There’s only been drills before, and I wasn’t even aware it was a real fire ... But there wasn’t any time during the whole thing that I could smell smoke. Now if I had smelled smoke, I would have been more concerned.
“The University Police Department was called at 10:10 a.m. and notified the Muncie Fire Department, UPD Sgt. David Bell said.
When the fire alarm sounded, students, faculty and administrators were evacuated, and the building remained closed until the smoke cleared.
“We locked all the doors, put down caution tape,” Bell said.
The building was open again around noon, UPD said. No one was hurt, and besides the motor, nothing else was damaged.
McPherson said his co-workers checked on him before leaving the building, and university police officers, maintenance personnel and Environmental Control also checked on him during and after the incident.
According to the university’s policy, emergency and public safety workers are responsible for moving a person in a wheelchair if the situation poses an immediate threat, Robert Zellers, director of scholarships and financial aid, said.
“I think they’ve been very careful in executing this policy and making sure this is the best way to handle this kind of situation,” Zellers said. “So as a supervisor, I have confidence in it, and I think John also has confidence in it.”
McPherson said if the situation did worsen, he would not have waited for emergency professionals to take him down the stairs.
“So if it was a real emergency, and I felt the fire was coming right away, I would just call out to the other guys, and we’ll head on down the stairs,” McPherson said. “I would just forget the policy and run.”
McPherson is the only administrator in the building who uses a wheelchair, Zellers said.
Larry Waters, dean of admissions and enrollment services, said he wasn’t concerned about smoke rising to the second floor.
“They had fans blowing it out, so it didn’t get to do that,” Waters said.
Bell said Friday’s incident was rare.
“We’ve had trouble with motors malfunctioning, but not burning,” Bell said. “Especially in this building, this is a pretty rare case. They’re going to have to put a new motor in, I’m sure.”
Kevin Kenyon, associate vice president for facilities planning and management, said that motors will fail from time to time. He said Friday that the elevator would be out of service until today to get a replacement motor.
“Not just elevator motors, but motors anywhere will fail,” Kenyon said. “I think everything went according to procedure.”
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