For example, when Elizabeth S. Mahler '01 was recently caught in a Holmes elevator, a Harvard University Police Department officer freed her in 10 minutes.

Mahler said shortly after pressing the button for her floor, the elevator went down "half a floor, stopped and jarred." She pressed the emergency telephone button, which she believed would connect her to Harvard's maintenance personnel, but the line was not working. Finally, the police officer freed her by using the elevator's exterior call button to return the elevator to the fourth floor.

According to Mahler, the breakdowns are becoming a concern for residents.

"You think it's not going to happen to you, and then it does," she said.

Conroy and Harkavy's long wait caused some residents to question why the Cambridge Fire Department (CFD) is not called to extricate trapped students.

Some claim the CFD would be able to respond more quickly than the Boston-based Thyssen Dover. And while the company guarantees a response time of less than one hour, Chuck E. Coyne of Harvard Facilities Maintenance said that it usually arrives much faster than that.

According to Lichten, though outright elevator breakdowns are rare, the University replaces two to four elevators per year. However, the time required to rebuild a system often makes it difficult to repair one mid-semester without seriously inconveniencing House residents.