The Tallahassee Regional Airport and the Federal Aviation Administration held an emergency disaster response exercise at the airport’s runway Friday.
Every three years, the FAA enforces the airport to conduct this type of exercise.
Jim Durwin, superintendent of airport operations, along with the help of his staff, put this event together.
“This exercise is to get community and local law enforcement aware of quicker emergency response tactics and making air travel safer,” Durwin said.
The exercise featured volunteers who acted as hurt, burned or deceased passengers from plane crashes and hands-on rescuers who pulled dummies from the burning plane.
Fire and medical professionals also participated and took notes on what should happen in case of a real emergency.
The simulation had an active color-coded medical facility, which treated victims according to how serious the volunteers’ injuries were.
Chris Curry, director of aviation, said the most important thing to him was the meeting after, which showed just how well the whole exercise went.
“This debriefing would let us know what we did well and what we should improve on for actual emergency disasters” Curry said.
Brandon Moton, a public health graduate student at Florida A&M from Miami, volunteered with three pharmacy students from FAMU.
“Getting more people to participate in things like this is our key goal,” Moton said.