Four Penn State students who were stuck in an Atherton Hall elevator with Katherine Ibanez said she fell down the elevator shaft while being evacuated by a resident assistant and bystanders, which is contrary to information the university gave this weekend.

Penn State spokesman Bill Mahon said Sunday the seven students stuck inside the elevator Friday between the building's third and fourth floors were instructed not to pry open its doors by an RA.

However, the students, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said someone on the third floor told them to use an emergency release lever to open the floor's elevator doors.

The students were granted anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the incident.

Penn State University Police said it would not confirm the students' names because the department is still investigating the incident. However, the four students gave their names to and corroborated each other's statements before a reporter and an editor of The Daily Collegian.

The students said they did not want to lay blame on anyone involved in the incident but that they came forward for the sake of Ibanez's family.

"It's no one's fault," a student said. "It happened; it's a freak accident."

Mahon said the information he gave came from university police and that he would be unable to confirm or deny the student's statements until contacting police today.

The students said they have already given statements to police that match their description of what happened Friday.

One student lives on the fourth floor of Atherton Hall, and the group had been in her dorm room Friday before entering the elevator, the students said.

While it has been rumored the students were jumping up and down in the elevator, an activity called "cannon-balling" that can cause elevators to stop, the students said they never engaged in such an activity.

After entering the elevator, the students became stuck between floors at about 9:15 p.m.

Someone opened a box intended to hold an emergency phone but only found wires, the students said. The students located and pressed an alarm button.

They said someone then began shouting from the fourth floor. The shouting was inaudible, so the students opened the doors inside the elevator. After the doors were opened, the students could hear the person yelling, who identified herself as the fourth floor's RA. She told them she was calling Office of Physical Plant (OPP) personnel, they said.

The students said they waited in the elevator for about 10 or 15 minutes. The elevator was congested and cramped. People in the group took off layers of winter clothes and sat on the elevator floor. Students said they feared the weight of seven people would cause the elevator to fall if they moved too much.

"We couldn't breathe," one student said. "It was hard to breathe, and it was hot."

They later heard someone from the third floor calling to them, the students said. That person told the students where a third-floor elevator door release lever was and how to use it. Thinking the person may have been OPP staff, they used the lever to open the door.

A group of people in the third-floor hallway, including an RA, helped carry the students out of the elevator. They said they took turns descending feet first with their stomachs on the elevator floor.

"You had to go out flat, which implies that there had to be people helping us," a student said.

The students said that Mahon's description of the students crawling down the elevator shaft was untrue.

"Nobody tried to crawl down an elevator shaft," a student said. "There was no room to jump."

However, Mahon said police told him two men crawled from the 18-inch-high space above the third floor and swung down to the floor's landing. Police told Mahon that Ibanez fell after following the two men because she was too short to reach the landing, he said.

But three people, not two, exited the elevator before Ibanez, the students said. Students said her feet missed the third-floor landing.

Police said she fell about 40 feet down the elevator shaft. Police and the University Ambulance Service responded to the incident at about 9:45 p.m. Ibanez was transported to Mount Nittany Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.

Students still inside the elevator when Ibanez fell said they did not hear anything but that people on the third floor told them she fell. At that point, they were told to stay inside the elevator.

However, the students said they did not know people meant she had fallen down the shaft and they continued to exit the elevator with the aid of bystanders.

A memorial service for Ibanez is scheduled to take place at 3 p.m. today in the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center.