Complete with a wrecked airplane, fireworks and smoke, and plenty of fake gory wounds and blood, Brantford Emergency Services staged a mock plane crash at the Brantford airport last Thursday.

The event was a training exercise for emergency services in the city and Brant county, services that include the County of Brant OPP, Brantford Police, County of Brant Ambulance Department, City of Brant Fire Department, Brantford Fire Department and the Brantford General Hospital.

“It’s an emergency measures planning to test our plans in conjunction with the city and county,” says Norm Booth, training officer for the Brantford Fire Department and organizer of the event, “to see if we can work with our partners, to see if our plans are up to date and that we can meet the needs of the province.”

“It’s going to test a lot of things, and hopefully we learn a lot of good things from it,” says Booth.

The “crash” simulated an airplane that had gone down during an air show, and the spectators are the audience of that show. To imitate real life, hundreds of Mohawk Brantford students attended the event to act as the mob of “scared spectators.” Others were decked out in full makeup and played the part of the injured “victims” of the crash. All victims were given cards that told them the age and injuries of the victim they were portraying.

Chris Minor, a first-year Police Foundations students at Mohawk was acting as a 56-year-old man with various symptoms.

“Honestly, they really didn’t tell us much, they’re just like here’s your card…these are your symptoms, bleeding, pain, swelling, redness, and shock,” Minor says, reading from the card pinned to his jeans and trying not to knock the fake piece of metal supposed to be jutting out from his ribcage.

The “crash,” which was the first full-scale simulation of its kind in Brantford since 1994, gives emergency response teams a chance to keep their skills up to date in case a real disaster were to occur in the city or somewhere in the nearby region.