MCCARTHY HALL— Monday evening, multiple firemen responding to potentially lethal levels of methane gas were forced to sign in by student guard Matt Harris (SFS ’16) before attending to the issue.

“Not a single one of us had our IDs with us at the time. I must’ve left my ID in my other pants. Shoot, it’s probably in my gym shorts that I just put in the laundry,” GU Fireman Ben Linas said.

Harris (SFS ’16) told the Heckler he became a student guard because he loved security and “isn’t in it for the money.”

“I remember one of the firemen making a quip about how other guards didn’t make them swipe in during past fires,” Harris said. “But to me, the rules are the rules.”

“People often ask me ‘Matt, do you ever feel like a hero?’ To be honest I don’t. It’s all part of the job, protecting people. The only way I sleep easy at night is because every night I go to bed knowing I make McCarthy safer.”

Ten minutes into the affair a Georgetown student walked out of the lobby elevator. But upon seeing the assembly of disgruntled firemen in the lobby, he bolted out of the lobby and into the quad before the firemen could ask him to sign them in.

“I had just made some brownies. I was so high at the time I thought the zombies were coming,” Junior Jonathan O’Toole later said on the encounter.

As a last resort, the firemen were forced to place a phone call to the student upstairs who initially reported the gas leak.

“She was already lightheaded when she called us,” Linas said. “I have no idea how she made it down the stairs.”

A few short minutes later the student arrived in the lobby. Harris then took her GO card and began swiping in the firemen. The card was declined multiple times, but after Harris wiped it on his jeans for a minute or so, it worked.

The firemen were able to contain the situation 45 minutes after receiving the distress call.