Love in an elevator once again took on a new meaning Tuesday night, as an elevator in Larch Hall dropped five floors after residents overloaded it going to a dinner exchange.

This comes five weeks after an elevator in Knapp Hall dropped several floors on Oct. 13 when 26 Vance House residents attempted to take the elevator down six floors to solicit a sister floor.

This time around, it was the residents of seventh floor Larch, Hanson House, who were attempting to get to a dinner exchange they were conducting with fifth floor Larch, Kehlenbeck House. Both floors are co-ed.

The trouble began when Hanson residents piled on the elevator on seventh floor, filling the car up with 23 people, said Hanson resident Kathryn Kallaher, freshman in psychology. The car has an occupancy limit of 20 people and 3,000 pounds.

The elevator stopped on sixth floor with no problems, Kallaher said. But when it stopped on fifth floor, the doors only opened halfway and the car began to slide down, with the doors slowly closing during the controlled fall.

Kallaher said the car quickly fell to the ground floor and stopped abruptly.

“There were so many of us in there that we didn’t fall down when it hit bottom, but it was a hard jolt,” she said.

Al Graves, fellow Hanson resident, also said the drop was controlled but the stop was harsh.

“It was kind of fun in a way,” said Graves, junior in dairy science. “We didn’t even realize it was falling, and then all of a sudden it hit. It was surprising how quick it got to the bottom.”

Kallaher said the 23 passengers on the elevator were then trapped inside the car, which had come to rest about a foot below the floor on the ground level.

Attempts at notifying authorities of the situation by using the help phone and pressing the alarm button brought no response, Graves said.

A Department of Public Safety dispatcher confirmed DPS received no trouble reports from any elevators on campus Tuesday night.

After being stuck in the elevator for about five minutes, Kallaher said two unidentified men she described as “large” pried the doors open with a dorm room key and then manually opened the doors.

“They just used brute strength,” she said.

Kallaher said the elevator still was stuck nearly an hour and a half later.

Although there were no reports of any maintenance personnel working on the elevator, it was functioning normally by 8:10 Tuesday night.

Larch Hall Director Brad Knapp could not be reached for comment Tuesday night.