Beltrami County Officials Respond to Plane Crash Simulation

Exercise tests emergency workers on the shore of Lake Bemidji

By Caley Jorgensen

Story #2

September 18^th, 2010

Word Count: 523

Area residents heard the sirens of an ambulance, fire truck, and police cars blaring through the streets last Thursday evening. Beltrami County Full Scale Airport Exercise prepared a simulation of a crash to allow emergency personnel to respond if an aircraft were to crash into Lake Bemidji. This exercise was designed to test the responders on how they handle a situation and how they work together.

The simulation took place at Cameron Beach, where volunteers gathered to set up the scene. Although no plane actually crashed into the lake, the exercise involved a realistic scenario, which involved a hijacker, a weapon, and the victims.

Students who played roles of floating victims
were placed a half mile off this shore at
Cameron Beach.

The scene started at 6 p.m. when an armed passenger entered the cockpit of a plane that departed from Minneapolis and would arrive in Bemidji. Emergency workers immediately responded when phone calls were received by the Beltrami County Communications Center that a plane had crashed in Lake Bemidji about a half-mile off shore of Cameron Beach. Even though this scene was made up, responders and volunteers treated victims, as they would, in real-life situations.

“The purpose of the drill was for emergency service providers to practice working together,” said Neil Dolan, an evaluator of the exercise. The different roles in which people participated in included controllers, evaluators, victims, and civilians. Dolan did his part by being behind the scenes and observing how everything played out. “I took notes on what can be improved and what went well,” said Dolan. “It was good to see cooperation between different agencies.”



Krysta Ryant participated in the exercise as
a victim. "It was interesting to see how the
 workers responded and treated us," Ryant said.



Many workers came to help the victims of the mock plane crash, as they would in a real situation. BSU junior Krysta Ryant played the role of a victim of the crash. “North Country first responders came, followed by Bemidji ambulance service and fire department,” Ryant explained. Along with these workers, Beltrami County Sheriff’s office responded, as well as Civil Air Control, Sheriff’s Mounted Posse, Transportation Security Administration, and Border Control.

With a total of 23 victims of the plane crash, some stayed on a pontoon on the lake, acting as though they had been stranded in the water, and others stood on shore as if they swam back. Each victim had a badge saying what injuries they had to act out. On the back side of Krysta Ryant’s badge, it explained her part and read “swam to shore, exhausted, large cut to head above eye.” All responders to the emergency treated victims with real materials, including neck braces and gauze.

One thing the participants did not expect was the real emergency call. “We were setback a little bit due to the fact we had two actual fires in Beltrami County and the fire department had to respond to them,” Neil Dolan explained. The Bemidji Fire Department returned to finish the simulation after responding to the fires in town.