Inside a simulated school shooting: Training exercise in N.J. tests the tremendous coordination needed to save lives. (PHOTOS) – lehighvalleylive.com

The dispatch crackles over the radio. It’s the call no one wants to hear.

Active shooter at Phillipsburg High School.

Police respond quickly, the first trio of officers entering the Warren County school minutes later – midmorning on a Saturday. Security camera feeds show them quickly moving down the hall, checking doors, their blue handguns drawn and ready.

Another screen shows a schematic of the building overlaying a satellite image. Points on the map show more officers arriving and mark where they are taking positions.

Another team enters the high school. The security feeds show something else now: They’re being followed by a man in a yellow vest. He’s carrying a camera. The police ignore him.

They arrive in the cafeteria. There are several bodies on the floor. One of them is the shooter. A blue rifle is at her side. She has taken her own life. 

“Shooter down in the cafeteria,” an officer radios. With the threat confirmed neutralized, attention quickly turns to the wounded. Some are already dead. Others may have only minutes left.

The training has begun. 

There is a line outside the Phillipsburg Middle School gym. Police and medical personnel are getting checked with a metal-detector wand as they enter.

Inside, they check in and find their groups to prepare for the test soon to come. 

Today is an exercise to analyze the local and county response to a mass shooting. Police, fire and EMS from around the Phillipsburg area and beyond will be analyzed as they grabble with an unfolding – but, fortunately, fake – gunman at the high school just a few minutes’ drive away. They will have to identify, treat and transport patients to the local hospitals, all while being watched by experts from the county, along with the state and federal Homeland Security offices.

Off to the left of the entrance, police are issued blue rubber handguns – training weapons – that they immediately holster. Two blue assault rifles are on the table next to the case.

In another section, triage teams check and re-check their red medical packs. They come with vests, helmets and personal kits – for the responders who go into potentially dangerous situations – as well as different colors of tape to mark the severity of victim’s injuries. Red is serious, yellow is moderate and green is relatively minor.

The most essential tools, Blairstown EMS Lt. John Browning privately explains, are bandages and tourniquets to stop the bleeding, and space blankets to keep victims warm and prevent shock from setting in.

The briefing for police, fire and EMS is to begin soon. They already know what’s coming. They need to be ready for the call.

The line of “patients” outside the nurse’s office extends out the door. They all look healthy going in, many of them severely less so coming out. A piece of paper is taped over the window: “Moulage room.”

Moulage refers to the application of mock injuries typically for emergency training. Professionals peel the gunshot wounds from paper and apply them to arms, legs, chests and foreheads. Extra makeup is applied to make the injuries appear, disturbingly, more realistic.

It’s a bizarre scene. People who look like they’ve already died are sitting there checking their phones with ashen faces or holding conversations with “blood” drying on their extremities.

“I thought it was a good opportunity to get involved, do something with the community,” says 15-year-old Cole Updike, who is among a trio of Warren Tech students volunteering as victims for the training exercise.