"What happened?" she said, grabbing her leg. "Where am I?"
Nearby were people with fake blood over their faces and bodies, some making noise and others not moving at all. One victim was placed on a stretcher and carried away.
The gruesome scene was made up of volunteer actors in a "mass casualty" exercise at the Colorado Springs Airport on a windy Wednesday morning - in which participants were told a small private aircraft collided midair with a passenger jet. It was a drill intended to give more than 700 police, fire, ambulance, hospital and other emergency personnel from 40 agencies an idea of what it's like to respond to such a disaster.
"It's a realistic and horrible scenario that we hope never happens," Mayor John Suthers said.
He was one of several local and state officials who watched the simulation which is required by the Federal Aviation Administration every three years to see how a community responds to large number of injuries and deaths caused by a plane crash or other emergency. Organized by the Colorado Springs Office of Emergency Management, the exercise was previously conducted in 2014.
On Wednesday, firefighters hopped out of fire trucks and responded to a fuselage simulator provided by Fort Carson. Within minutes, the fire was put out. From there, two bus loads of "victims" found their place near the aircraft as first responders tended to their needs. Some screamed for help while others were motionless.
In all, the drill had 101 mock victims, including 20 who pretended they had died.
They were moved to a nearby triage location before being taken to local emergency rooms for treatment, while one victim was airlifted to a hospital.
Organizers wanted the exercise - which involved about eight months of planning - to be as real as possible.
"They are performing very well," said Nick DeSutter, an emergency management coordinator with the Colorado Springs Office of Emergency Management, referring to the first responders who were treating patients behind him at the training site. "I think the leadership within our community should be very proud of that."
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