St. Charles Borromeo Fountain of Youth Ministry students, along with rescue workers, ambulance personnel and firemen participated in a mock airplane crash on Oct. 18 to help train emergency workers.
Overall, 26 students and five adults from St. Charles Parish participated in the mock training exercise that took place at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.
“One of our parishioners is an employee at the airport and heard about them looking for a group to help with the training exercise and asked if my Fountain of Youth teens would be interested,” Janeen Rodrigue, director of the youth group said. “I emailed all of the kids and got such an overwhelming response that I had to put some of them on a waiting list.”
Once the students arrived, an airport representative took them through two hours of make-up.
“The kids looked like they were really injured and everything was set up in place to help to resemble a mock crash,” Rodrigue said. “Initially, a house was set on fire and the crew on the ground contacted local fire departments in the area just to see how long it would take crews to arrive and get in full gear to put it out.”
Throughout the remainder of the day, the youth group was given instructions on cards that described their injuries and told them where to go. These cards also let the rescue and emergency medical team know what injuries the students had sustained so that they could be treated quickly.
“The students were asked to lie on various parts of the ground and some actually were left injured on the plane,” Rodrigue said.
According to airport officials, the drill takes place once every three years to test all portions of the airport’s emergency plan.
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