'Very dehumanizing:' UNC student with disability stranded in dorm after elevator breaks down
A University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill student is pushing for university officials to make campus more wheelchair friendly, after she says she was trapped inside her dorm for more than 36 hours.
Laura Saavedra Forero was woken up by the sound of a resident assistant pounding on her dorm on the fourth floor in Koury Hall one Saturday in late February.
“I woke up to loud knocks on my door, it was my RA telling me that the elevator was broken and they would be in contact but it should be resolved soon,” Saavedra Forero, said.
The estimated repair time went from 30 minutes, to several hours – and finally days.
She was told it would be fixed the following Tuesday.
While other students in Koury simply used the stairs, Saavedra Forero was stuck. She documented her experience on Snapchat and Instagram. By Sunday she had enough – and after four hours of waiting was carried out by EMS.
“It was just very dehumanizing,” Saavedra Forero said.
Saavedra Forero tells WRAL 5 On Your Side that she was never offered a room on the first floor. And since the incident, she was told she could either move off campus or live in a dorm previously used for students with COVID to isolate.
WRAL 5 On Your Side sent UNC a list of questions about the matter. While they could not comment on the specific incident involving Saavedra Forero, they provided the following answer:
“The University is committed to accessibility and to the safety of all students. We continue to work with students and key campus partners to examine processes, policies and procedures.
You can find information about what individuals with disabilities should do in case of an emergency on the University’s Campus Safety/Institutional Integrity and Risk Management website here: https://campussafety.unc.edu/carolina-ready/individuals-with-disabilities/.
There you’ll find evacuation options and disability guidelines to follow in case of an emergency. This applies to both residence halls and academic buildings.
Students affected by elevator outages in residence halls can work with Carolina Housing for individualized accommodations, which may include temporary relocation to another accessible room or arranging food and other services to be delivered to the student in their current location. For elevator outages in academic buildings, students may work directly with Accessibility Resources and Service and instructors for options around accessibility which may include temporarily moving a class or providing remote access.
Regarding transportation, the University provides a service called Point-to-Point on-demand. Lift equipped vans, operated by the Department of Transportation and Parking, provide accessible transportation between various points of campus. Additionally, buses are accessible.”
Saavedra Forero says she is in contact with university leaders and wants more permanent change so other students who use wheelchairs don’t have a similar experience.
