Estonia's first responders hold school drone attack drills

Estonia's emergency services held a large-scale realistic crisis exercise at a high school in western Estonia to practice responding to a drone attack as the threat from unmanned aerial vehicles grows.
According to the scenario, a drone flew into the foyer of Kilingi-Nõmme High School in Pärnu County and exploded. The children were evacuated. Rescue services and ambulances arrived within minutes. However, injured students and a teacher were trapped in a third-floor classroom.
The scene there was disturbingly realistic, Saturday's "Aktuaalne kaamera" evening news show reported.
Kristjan Kaunissaar, field commander at the Western Rescue Center, said the school had provided approximately 20 simulated casualties for the exercise. In addition, personnel from the police, rescue services, ambulance services and bomb disposal teams were involved in the response.
Rescuers were tasked with evacuating the children from the third floor, while medical personnel carried out rapid triage. Young people wearing special effects makeup acted as the wounded pupils.
Aaron, a 12th-grade student at Kilingi-Nõmme High School, had been given a facial injury in the exercise. He described the exercise as exciting.
Lissa, a 12th-grade student at Kilingi-Nõmme Gymnasium, had been assigned more severe injuries, including shrapnel wounds to the legs and stomach. She considered the rescuers' work slow. "I think I should actually have been dead a long time ago," she told "Aktuaalne kaamera."
Arvi, a national defense teacher at the school, said he was satisfied with the rescue services. "We have practiced and dealt with similar situations in exercises before," he added.
Kilingi-Nõmme High School organized the exercise because the threat from drones is constantly present. During the exercise, the school tested whether its crisis plan would hold up in a situation more realistic than what is written on paper or a regular fire drill.
Harri Kramm, the school's facilities manager and the organizer of the exercise, said the exercise went well but there are always more lessons to be learned.
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Editor: Helen Wright, Merilin Leetna
Source: Aktuaalne kaamera











