In the middle of the night, 24 residents of Gateway Building 807 filed out into the cold as fire alarms blared behind them. As they stood on the grass near the Residence Halls huddled in tight circles of blankets and sweaters, some students grumbled they hoped there was a good reason that they were forced from their beds at 3 a.m. on Sunday.
There wasn’t.
Someone had completely emptied a fire extinguisher into the lounge that connects the dorm’s two wings. Firefighters said they couldn’t find any indication that the extinguisher was actually used to put out a fire. The U Police Department suspects it was simply someone goofing off.
Since the lounge’s windows and doors were closed, the expellant was trapped. It condensed and set off the alarm.
“I’m just glad everyone is OK,” said Irving Torres, a junior in political science.
Katie Erickson, a resident adviser in the building, said the whole ordeal was unfortunate.
The same firefighters had been called to the building an hour earlier for an unrelated incident. A student had trouble breathing, but is doing fine, they said.
“They were like, “Hey, we were just here!'” Erickson said.
Michael McFall