SJSU purchases more evacuation chairs
Same device used to help students get out of King Library after earthquake
Sarah Kyo
Issue date: 11/14/07 Section: News
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The devices can be found near stairwells in multiple buildings on campus.
Marty Schulter, director of the Disabilities Resource Center, said a plan to install Evacu-Tracs throughout campus has been in the works for four years in three phases.
Besides being used to evacuate people with disabilities from buildings, Schulter said Evacu-Tracs can be used for able-bodied people who might be injured during an earthquake or a fire.
The device grips to the steps of stairs, allowing one person to wheel another person step-by-step down a staircase. They can also be pushed to transport people from one place to another on a more flat surface.
These devices are such that they are very secure and light enough that a person with very minimum training, can operate them, Schulter said.
"In fact we found during the earthquake someone with no training who was a fellow student actually was evacuated by another student," Schulter said.
Schulter was referring to an incident printed in the Oct. 31 issue of the Spartan Daily in which a student, Wilson Kong, helped another student, Abdullah Mojaddidi, evacuate from the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library with the Evacu-Trac after a 5.6 earthquake.
Calvin Lee, a senior forensics science major, said before the current Evacu-Tracs, there were other types of evacuation chairs installed on campus, such as one that involved a few people carrying the evacuee and another that ran on an actual track.
"The Evacu-Tracs are kind of the newest type of evacuation chairs available," Lee said. "They have their own brakes and everything. It's a lot safer than having three people carry someone down."
Lee is an instructor with a program through the University Police Department called the Community Emergency Response Team.
Spencer Wong, an emergency services assistant, said the Los Angeles Fire Department formed the Community Emergency Response Team program in 1985 after an earthquake hit Mexico.
"They saw a lot of people were willing to come forward and help, but they weren't prepared, and they were ill-prepared and a lot of them ended up getting hurt," Wong said. "So we now have the CERT program they developed, which is a community emergency response team."
Wong teaches free, three-day CERT classes especially aimed toward students, faculty and staff members. Part of the training is to teach people how to use the Evacu-Tracs, which can be found in white boxes in buildings throughout campus.
Schulter said there are about 45 chairs currently located throughout the campus, while 40 to 50 chairs may be added during the last phase, depending on the prices of the chairs.
In addition, Schulter said there are plans to possibly purchase a Super-Trac, which would cost $10,000 to $12,000.
Unlike the Evacu-Trac, the Super-Trac can transport a person and his or her wheelchair during an emergency.
The Super-Trac can also be used in other situations, said Lucille M. Surdi, an American with Disabilities Act compliance specialist.
"In non-emergency situations, when you have an elevator just stuck and broke and you have someone on the third floor, that would be the apparatus that we would use," she said.
Wong said Evacu-Tracs are not displayed in Campus Village.
"The reason the Evacu-Tracs are not available in Campus Village is not really due to a funding issue," Wong said. "It is an issue of abuse."
Wong said some students often tamper with fire extinguishers, hoses and alarms already present in Campus Village.
He said this is the same reason why automatic external defibrillators, devices used on people experiencing cardiac arrest, are also not present in Campus Village.
Wong said these safety devices can cost up to $3,000.
According to a letter from the Accommodations Review Board, an Evacu-Trac Chair costs $2,450.
"We know that the very first thing students will do with them is abuse them, like they do with fire extinguishers and other safety devices inside their building," Wong said.
 Media Credit: Hanna Thrasher An Evacu-Trac is a chair used to help evacuate disabled people down staircases in buildings during an emergency. |
Wong said there have been discussions about storing the Evacu-Trac somewhere considered "safe" such as a residential adviser's room, especially if a disabled student is living on that floor.
"But for the most part we haven't been willing to go that far yet because the counterargument is if it's locked away in a RA's room, only the RA has access to it and not everybody else," Wong said. "What happens if the RA is not there?"
Raymond Ho, a junior mechanical engineering major, is an instructor in the CERT program. Ho said more people should be aware of where Evacu-Tracs are located and should read the instructions posted on the boxes.
"People pass by them, but not a lot of people pay attention to them," Ho said. "But those of us who are trained in them actually tend to notice them and know where they are, so we can get to them pretty quickly."
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