The Medicine Hat Fire Service's airport response truck heads towards a training scenario Tuesday afternoon - Photo by Charles Lefebvre

By Charles Lefebvre

Emergency crews train for airport emergency

Dec 3, 2019 | 5:18 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — Emergency workers in Medicine Hat spent Tuesday afternoon making sure they’re ready to go if an emergency occurred at the airport.

The Medicine Hat Police Service, the Medicine Hat Fire Service, paramedics and city airport staff took part in an emergency drill on the airport runways.

“The idea is we had a plane that had some difficulty in the air, and it is coming in to land at the airport,” said Jason Wheeler, health, safety and emergency coordinator with the city. “Prior to that, we’ll be preparing a response, so the call will go out to 911, and then we will deploy emergency assets to the airport to deal with a potential incident.”

Wheeler says the drills allow emergency workers to sharpen their skills so they’re ready for the real thing.

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“The only way you can function during these real incidents is to practice and drill and train, and then the hard stuff comes a little easier, if that makes sense,” he said. “So it’s really important that we practice and train for these things.”

Wheeler says emergency workers do small-scale training at least once a year, with a large-scale exercise happening every four years.

Regular operations at the airport were not impacted by the training.