Local residents, rest assured: There definitely was not a bus crash on Highway CC the morning of Thursday, June 7. However, it might have looked that way at first glance.A bus lay off the road where it appeared to have had rolled onto its side. Young students at the scene showed signs of injury, from minor to severe.But it was all a drill.A tow truck had dropped off the bus on its side along Highway CC about 2 miles from Highway 47. The volunteer students’ injuries were a creation of makeup and props.This was the setup for a realistic “mass casualty” training exercise involving nearly every emergency agency in Warren County. The responding crews were kept in the dark about most of the details beforehand.Between 9 and 9:30 a.m., the call went out, “This is a drill. All agencies, respond to a school bus rollover on Highway CC. This is a drill.”For the next two hours, medics, firefighters and law enforcement officers bustled to extract 18 students and the driver from the school bus, sort the injured and prioritize them for transport.School administrators arrived at the scene to account for every student and communicate with their parents (who were all informed about the training ahead of time). It was a training exercise that took a lot of coordination and almost a year to plan, said Warren County Emergency Management Director Mike Daniels.“I think it went really well. ... The cooperation between all the agencies was phenomenal. We had three state agencies and 13 (local) agencies were involved, either in the response or in the planning of the exercise.”Experts from various county and state emergency management agencies, as well as SSM and Mercy hospitals, served as the evaluators for the event. They were assessing the operational coordination of the responders, emergency communication with the public, and the pre-hospital treatment of “patients” at the scene.Justin Fears, owner of Phobius Haunted House and principal of Alpha Academy in Warrenton, provided the makeup and props for the drill.Challenges, StrengthsIt will be a few weeks before the full evaluation report is finalized, but Daniels said the participants have already discussed strengths and challenges revealed by the exercise.“We had some radio communication issues. ... We were right under power lines, so that might have been a contributing factor,” Daniels explained. He said any other weaknesses identified will then result in a plan of action.“We need to find a path forward to improve that area of weakness, either through training, or it could be an equipment issue,” Daniels said.Warrenton Fire Chief Mike Owenby, who helped set up the training, said the scale and realism of the exercise was a relatively rare opportunity for emergency crews.“The exercise was designed to put critical thinking process in play, to force them to come up with responses to a situation,” Owenby said.The emergency districts have plans in place for how to respond to such incidents, but making adjustments to the unique details of a specific situation was part of the training, he explained.Some things went well and some things could be improved, the chief said. Some elements of the response would have been different if it was a real scenario. There would be helicopters flying in, a separate staging area for extra ambulances, hazmat and crash reconstruction teams, for example.Needless to say, the training didn’t go quite that far. In a real event, Owenby said he has complete confidence in all the emergency service personnel involved.“I have no doubts that they could handle an incident. We want to practice so that we can get better at it,” Owenby continued. “The more we can work together, the more seamless that operation is going to be.”District takes partThe exercise included the Warren County R-III School District, which isn’t typically a party to emergency training.Dr. Aaron Jones, assistant superintendent for the district, said it was a valuable opportunity to build relationships with emergency teams and practice the response to an actual event.“After (the exercise) was completed, when speaking with many of those involved, the adrenaline and stress levels did make it feel like an actual emergency event,” Jones said.He added that the exercise revealed an issue with a few district radios, and said the district would like staff to become more familiar with emergency terminology and protocol. Communication with families and the process of reuniting students with their families after an event were also identified for potential improvements, he said.This was one of the largest training events the district has ever done, but Jones said employees get practice handling smaller emergencies every day.“While it may not be a mass casualty event such as this, we treat every situation — from a broken arm to a student who gets on the wrong bus — as if it is our own child and their life is in our hands,” Jones said.He mentioned a gas leak near Rebecca Boone Elementary on the last day of school this year as an example of good coordination with emergency agencies in a real scenario.“If we didn’t have the relationship with the first responders that we do, that could have been a much worse situation than it was,” Jones said.

Building principals from Warren County R-III School District, at left, collect student information while emergency personnel assess the students following a mock bus crash on Highway CC Thursday, June 7. The large-scale exercise was designed to test the response to a "mass casualty" event. 

Record photo/Adam Rollins

Warrenton firefighter/EMT Dennis Tittel lifts a student with a mock leg injury out of the emergency hatch of a school bus as part of a training scenario on Highway CC Thursday, June 7. A simulated bus crash was staged to test emergency response and coordination among Warren County agencies. 

Record photo/Adam Rollins

Emergency responders lead one of 18 students with fake injuries away from a mock bus crash on Highway CC Thursday, June 7. Warren County responders were tasked with responding to the crash as if it were a real scenario. 

Record photo/Adam Rollins