SAN ANGELO, Texas -- The Mathis Field Regional Airport hosted an exercise in which a military aircraft collided with a commercial passenger aircraft, Goodfellow provided actors for emergency services to assist, July 13.
Both the base and the city of San Angelo prepped for the exercise for months.
Emergency response felt the exercise was important and were thankful for Goodfellow for providing crisis actors.
“I love Goodfellow just because I don’t think we’d be able to hold this exercise without them,” said Shane Matthews, San Angelo firefighter. “We were able to use them, for all the patients and all the other help and resources.”
The scenario was a crash on the flight line of Mathis Regional Airport. Surviving passengers were located in a nearby field and emergency services drove onto the tarmac to get to them and render first-aid.
The purpose of exercises such as these are to find problems within the processes of responding to major incidents. If something like this were to happen real world, emergency services would be somewhat familiar on how to approach the situation. Everything from logistics to contacts and how Goodfellow figures into the situation.
“If we had something this big, of course we’re going to had to end up calling for their help,” said Matthews.
The actors, Goodfellow Airman, wore simulated injuries. Their bodies were decorated with makeup prior to the beginning of the exercise. The medics responded as if the injuries were real and had to prioritize who to help first.
“I laid out in a field helpless because I have a thing sticking through my foot,” said Airman 1st Class Nancy Fuller, 315th Training Squadron student. “They were actually very attentive.”