South Bend International holds safety drill

 

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- South Bend International Airport and 24 local agencies conducted a drill at the airport Wednesday to simulate a serious plane crash.

The FAA requires the airport to test this scenario once every three years.

The drill was set up to be as realistic as possible so every agency can practice their response to this type of incident.

"We want to look at what do. We want to test, train on, we establish those objectives and then we work around that and the scenario we do for the drill addresses those objectives. We involve all our emergency preparedness agencies in the area," said airport safety chief Mike Ornat.

In an effort to make the drill as realistic as possible volunteers pretended to be injured passengers.

The airport even brought in a make-up team to make it appear as if the volunteers were actually hurt.

It was a job the volunteers took very seriously.

"I can't walk around. I'll be immobile, lying in a pool of blood, I'll need to be assessed and determined whether or not I'm critical enough to be transported to the hospital or too critical where I get black tagged and can't go anywhere," volunteer Jenna Wireman said.

Each patient was given a card that identified their injuries.

The drill did not affect regular airport operations.