Emergency Response Crews Take Part in Mass Casualty Drill at Utah Air Force Base

May 20--HILL AIR FORCE BASE -- Hill Air Force Base officials say a terrorist attack at their June air show is very unlikely.

But unlikely doesn't mean impossible, and so the response crews that will be on duty for the show must prepare for the worst.

More than 180 personnel from Hill and 29 other Weber and Davis county agencies conducted a mass casualty response drill on the base's flightline Wednesday. The drill involved a scenario where two suicide bombers detonated explosive devices near a large crowd of spectators.

Sporting realistic-looking but fake wounds and blood, more than 150 students from the Clearfield Job Corps played victims during the drill.

When briefing emergency crews before the exercise began, Hill Fire Department Special Operations Chief Jeff Herriott spoke plainly about what to expect during such an incident.

"The easiest way to say it is this," he said. "This type of thing is never going to be easy. Keep that in mind."

When the drill started, crews rushed to transport victims from the flightline to five area hospitals. The victims were assessed by emergency personnel, who prioritized extraction based on the severity of injury. Some victims were taken by ambulance, others by Life Flight helicopters.

Hill Fire Chief Paul Erickson said one of the goals of the exercise was to get all of the victims to the hospitals within one hour. Erickson said emergency crews have been preparing for the drill since December.

Col. Ronald Jolly, commander of the 75th Air Base Wing, said while Wednesday's training involved a very specific scenario, it prepares crews for a host of calamities.

"We do these to prepare for any kind of (mass casualty) event that might happen," Jolly said. "(The training) is more about the response to the incident than the incident itself."

Erickson said during an air show, a mass casualty event involving a plane crash is an obvious possibility and something Wednesday's training covered.

"There's going to be a lot of activity in the air, with planes doing things they normally don't do," he said. "So the likelihood is just a little bit greater."

Jolly and Erickson both said chances a mass casualty event at the air show are low, but training helps to keep skills sharp and ready to be used in a moment's notice.

"We train and prepare as well as we can," Erickson said. "But we hope we never have to use our skills."

The 2016 "Warriors Over the Wasatch" open house and air show will take place June 25 and 26. Organizers expect more than 600,000 spectators to converge on the base's flightline for the two-day exhibition.

The show is free and will run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, The Breitling Jet Team, the Army Golden Knights parachute team and nearly 20 other performers will perform. The show will also feature 50 static aircraft displays and an Air Force "Heritage Flight," with an F-35 Lightning II flying alongside a vintage World War II plane.

You can reach reporter Mitch Shaw at mishaw@standard.net or at 801-625-4233. Follow him on Twitter at @mitchshaw23 or like him on Facebook.

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