The search for women can drive some men mad. It drives others down seven floors in a matter of seconds.

Twenty-six Iowa State residents had the latter experience in the north elevator of Knapp Hall Tuesday night.

The Department of Public Safety received a call Tuesday night from the Department of Residence Service Center at 10:15 indicating that an elevator in Knapp Hall had trapped several residents on the ground floor after a fall of about seven floors, said Jerry Stewart, associate director of DPS.

Dean Hermsen, one of the men trapped in the elevator, said he and his fellow residents of Vance House on the ninth floor of Knapp were attempting to get down to second floor Rawson House.

“It was just a little after our 10 o’clock floor meeting, and we were going down to second floor to see if they would be our sister floor,” he said. “We were all just going down to talk to them, you know? Everybody piled in the elevator, and I was the last one on board.”

Hermsen said everything seemed to be going fine until some Vance residents began to get rowdy.

“The elevator went down, and everybody in the back of the elevator starting pushing around like a mosh pit,” he said. “Then the elevator started falling, and we could hear screeching noises.”

Though the elevator, which has a posted limit of 23 occupants and/or 3,500 pounds, began to fall, Hermsen said it was never a frightening experience.

“I really didn’t feel my stomach drop; you could just feel the car speeding up,” he said. “It wasn’t quite a falling feeling; it was just like we were all of a sudden at the bottom when it hadn’t even beeped at any of the floors yet.”

The elevator quickly dropped to ground floor, where its doors opened about 2 inches, then shut again quickly, Hermsen said. No injuries were reported.

DPS officer Karen Mills responded to the scene, as well as Knapp Hall Director Ben Chamberlain and maintenance personnel from Montgomery-Kone, the company that operates the elevators in the residence halls, Stewart said.

Chamberlain said there was never any damage actually done to the elevator car or shaft, and it was simply a safety precaution because the car was overloaded.

“The repair man said that when the elevators are overweight, it just lowers the elevator down to ground floor as a safety measure,” he said.

Chamberlain said Montgomery-Kone had problems opening the door from the ground, and they were forced to manually switch off the safety switch from the top of the shaft. The doors were opened by 11:05 p.m., according to DPS records.

Stewart said Mills asked repeatedly to make sure everyone who was stuck inside the car for about 50 minutes was all right and in good spirits.

“We just started singing because there was nothing else to do,” Hermsen said. “The only bad part was getting hot and running out of air.”

Hermsen said the 26 Vance House residents trapped in the car broke into various songs, including Vanilla Ice’s “Ice, Ice, Baby,” Limp Bizkit’s “Nookie” and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Chamberlain said he would be posting flyers and reminding residents to pay attention to the load recommendations on elevators in the future.

“Part of me, though, thinks it’s common sense that you don’t overload an elevator,” he said.

As for Hermsen, he said the experience didn’t ruin him on elevators.

“[Tuesday] when I got on the elevator, I counted 15 people on there, and it made me a little nervous,” he said. “But I still feel safe in elevators.”