What? They looked like they were hurt...they acted like they were hurt...but the injuries were as fake as the tornado that never happened!

It was all just a training exercise for the Travis County Search and Rescue Team and about 50 SAR team members from various agencies around Central Texas. They had spent the week in a detailed training class, and the final step was to demonstrate what they had learned.

That meant they needed a disaster to practice on, and members of the Blanco County Disaster Response Team spent their Sunday afternoon playing the roles of victims.

The exercise was a mock tornado that passed through a 20-acre area north of Austin-Bergstrom Airport.

“The makeup artists were really impressive,” said Deb McClintock, who was painted up with cuts and bruises. “They did everything from electrocutions to nails driven through ankles.”

“Some of the imitation injuries would just turn your stomach, and a few even had sound effects. And they taught us how to behave and what to complain about with each injury.”

It had to be realistic so the searchers would have to figure out what was wrong with each person they found, and which ones to move first and how to handle them.

Susan Hamm was voted “best actress” for her performance as a victim of flying glass shards, and as the wife who kept nagging the search teams about her husband’s needs.

“Well, they just kept walking by him,” Hamm complained, “and they could see how badly he was hurt but they would ignore him and move on to find someone else. I wanted someone to help him!”

But helping wasn’t the right thing to do. The search teams had been taught to find victims, mark their places and injuries, then move on to finish the search. That would tell them where everyone was and who needed treatment first. If they stopped to help the first person they saw, it might mean someone farther on would die.

“I don’t know how they could have expected to find anyone more in need of help than I was,” explained David Hamm. “I had been impaled by a big tree branch. It went right through my body. And I was bleeding like a stuck pig. And it hurt.”

Or it would have hurt if it were more than the makeup artist’s creation.

The victims agreed they learned a lot in the exercise, too.

“We hadn’t realized that in a situation like that, the searchers might have to just ignore pleas for help and keep moving until the search was complete,” McClintock said. “That’s hard for rescuers to make themselves do, and if there had been more people playing family members, like Susan did, it would have been a lot harder.”

“But it’s something to think about and prepare for. Even if the first responders find you quickly, they may not be able to help you right away. That’s where our Red Cross first aid training would really pay off.”