Thursday evening the plaza-side elevator in the Healey Library malfunctioned leaving a woman trapped inside for approximately one hour.

The UMass Boston Police Department reported that they received multiple phone calls alerting them of the incident at around 5:20 p.m. Thursday evening.

Joe Williams of campus facilities says that facilities was alerted of the entrapment around 5:30 that evening, and immediately sent a supervisor to help secure the area. Then placed a call to Atlantic Elevator, the company responsible for the maintenance of the elevators on the UMB campus.

Williams maintains that the mechanic’s estimated time of arrival to UMass was approximately 15 or 20 minutes.

John Tierney, on-site Atlantic service mechanic for UMass Boston, is on campus daily until 4:30 to assess the elevators. He says that these types of occurrences are not commonplace.

“I work here eight hours a day. I’ve been here for a month and I haven’t found an entrapment,” says Tierney.

Tierney, although not the mechanic who responded to the call, explains that the stopped elevator had stalled and leveled, as a result of a number of factors including circuit timing.

According to UMB facilities, the elevator was up and running without incident on Friday morning.

Tierney says that the elevators on campus are constantly assessed. He says that most issues that occur with the devices are a result of passenger interference. According to Tierney, attempting to remedy issues rather than contact someone qualified (i.e. the popular student methods of forcing doors open and shut in the Wheatley Building) do the machines more harm in the long run.

“It’s the nature of kids wanting to get somewhere in a hurry,” he says.

UMB Police identified the woman trapped in the Healey elevator as Mary Walsh. Witnesses at the scene say that she was visibly upset and had missed a class she had been on route to teach.

Attempts to contact Walsh were not successful at press time.