Students evacuated JBKO Hall for about two hours on Wednesday while GW safety personnel responded to a carbon monoxide leak in the residence hall.
University spokesperson Julia Garbitt said the University learned of a carbon monoxide leak in the building at 11:17 a.m. and sounded an alarm to evacuate students while the GW Emergency Medical Response Group, GW Police Department, GW Environmental Health and Safety division and Campus Living and Residential Education responded to the scene. Garbitt confirmed that EMeRG performed medical evaluations on a few students as they evacuated the building but said officials don’t believe anyone was harmed by the leak.
Garbitt said officials relocated JBKO residents to the University Student Center before giving them the all clear to reenter the building at 1:37 p.m.
“The safety of our GW community remains our highest priority, and we will continue to share updates with impacted students,” Garbitt said.
In a 12:24 p.m. email sent to all JBKO residents, Community Coordinator Myles Solomon instructed residents to leave the building, adding that the fire alarm was not a drill.
“The fire alarm is currently on. Please evacuate the building immediately; THIS IS NOT A DRILL,” Solomon said in his email.
Following the evacuation, Solomon sent a subsequent email to residents asking them to “treat every fire alarm like an emergency,” adding that future failure to exit the building in a “timely fashion” will result in disciplinary action.
Just after 1 p.m., two residents exited the building and were brought immediately to the EMeRG ambulance on scene for evaluation. Sonia Elgamal, a sophomore resident of JBKO, said she and her roommate both have sleeping disorders, which prevented them from waking up to the sound of the alarm.
Elgamal said she was awakened by the sound of a security guard knocking on their door, who then entered the room and ushered them out of the building and toward the EMeRG ambulance.
“They took our vitals to make sure we were okay, and I asked what was going on and they said ‘carbon monoxide leak,’” Elgamal said.
The gas leak comes about seven months after Munson Hall, JBKO’s neighboring residence hall, evacuated the building for a gas leak in August.
