Air cadet Lindsay Marczak looked pretty healthy for someone who had been dead all afternoon.Hanging out beside Hangar 6 at the Red Deer Airport complex with a bunch of her fellow cadets, you would never have guessed she was proclaimed deceased due to major head trauma sustained in a Boeing 737 crash just hours earlier.Of course the air cadet was just drawing on her acting skills, as part of a drill meant to test the disaster response plans of the airport and area emergency crews.“I definitely learned a few things,” said Marczak. “It was interesting to see how everyone played their parts, seeing the different injuries and how they played assisting to that injury or death.”The exercise, held Aug. 12, involved over 100 people, including members of Red Deer County Technical Rescue, Red Deer County Fire and Patrol Services, the Red Deer Airport, NAV Canada, Blackfalds RCMP and EMS.The 51 casualties were played by air cadets, who were happy to get right into their roles.“Some of the cadets were pretty good actors, so it was fun seeing them getting right into it,” said Master Cpl. Anna Weingartl, unit public affairs representative with the Penhold Air Cadet Summer Training Centre. “It was actually pretty good for them to see how a real first responder would deal with these kind of problems. They got to see what would happen in real life.”Cadet Ashley Friske played a pilot who died upon impact. The air cadets joked that this is what happens when you put a 16-year-old army cadet in charge of flying a jet.“I didn't get to see much because I was in the cockpit on the floor,” said Friske. “It was fun. I liked being a part of it.”She was surprised by how long she had to wait to be attended to, but added that was because she was dead and therefore would be looked after only once all the injured passengers were treated.Cadets were given tags indicating their injuries, and emergency personnel carried victims on stretchers to aid zones colour coded green, yellow and red corresponding to the level of severity of harm.“I just threw myself over the other people in the plane and just kind of laid there,” said cadet Colin Tuor-Howe, who was wasn't breathing and had no pulse when he was found. “I think it's really interesting how they're doing it with kids and not just adults.”Using children seemed to add an element of fear, he said.“It gives it a scarier reality,” said Tuor-Howe. “Most adults don't want to see children injured.”Ric Henderson, director of emergency management for Red Deer County, explained that when you don't have an actual disaster for rescue teams to attend to it is crucial to run tests such as these.“Everybody wants to test their skills and their processes,” said Henderson. “Part of what we're trying to test is our communications ability.”It's important for emergency personnel to practice finding casualties who may be missing somewhere out in a field, he said.Red Deer airport CEO R.J. Steenstra, said holding a drill such as this helps emergency response organizations get ahead of the curve, just in case a disaster were to happen.“It allowed us to review our emergency response plan as it relates to the county's emergency response plan,” said Steenstra. “If there are gaps, we address those gaps.”The Red Deer Airport must run a mock disaster test once every three years because it is classified as a Category Three airport. No other Central Alberta airfields have this requirement, but any disaster at the Innisfail or Olds-Didsbury airports would be handled in a manner similar to any 911 emergency.
