Students say lifts unreliable, stairs locked
A late-night trip to the dairy to buy a bottle of coke turned into a nearly-two hour ordeal for an AUT student, when he was trapped in the lift of his university apartment building.
The student, who did not want to be named, said at least one lift was always broken in the building. He couldn’t take the stairs because the stairwell doors were permanently locked.
This had raised safety concerns for residents in the building, because entry and exit of the building is available solely via the lifts.
Another student, who also lives on the second floor, said: ‘‘What do we do if there’s a fire, wait for a security guard to come and unlock it?’’
AUT’s Wellesley Student Apartments are located in a 13-storey building, housing 502 residents on Mount St in Auckland City.
Fire and Emergency was called to the bottom floor of the building around 11pm on Saturday, after 14 students were trapped in the lift.
Overcrowding was the suspected cause of the incident.
The ordeal had a few of the trapped people freaking out from claustrophobia and anxiety, the student said. ‘‘For me, it was more scary that we didn’t know how long we were going to be trapped in there and the lack of communication between us and the outside world.’’
The first time the students called security, they were told to wait for half an hour. Then after
45 minutes there still wasn’t anyone, he said.
The lift wasn’t overloaded either, he argued.
‘‘The maximum lift capacity is
14 people, so maybe it would be good to put a lower limit on the sign in the lift,’’ he said.
AUT spokeswoman Alison Sykora confirmed there have been eight lift breakdowns across the four lifts in the building this year.
AUT residential services had investigated the incident and confirmed the lift got stuck at
10.05pm. Two minutes later, security staff responded and spoke to an occupant of the lift.
The lift technicians were notified immediately and another guard who was already stationed within the building was at the lift within 10 minutes, she said.
The lift technician arrived just over an hour after the call, the service response time is one hour.
Fire risk management officer Chris Lewis said exit-only stairways are common in buildings of this size for security reasons. However, it did not pose a health and safety risk because in the event of a fire, students can exit via the stairs.
The doors automatically open in the event of an emergency.
‘‘Lifts malfunctioning is not common, but it does happen,’’ he said. ‘‘Overcrowding is usually the cause behind lift failures.’’
AUT was exploring the idea of enabling residents to use the stairs and considering the balance between security, safety and convenience, Sykora said.