There were plenty of signs that Yellowstone Regional Airport had not actually been the victim of a crazed shooter, including an occasional chuckle from a “corpse” or two.

But dozens of volunteer victims — some with gruesome make-up and yelling in feigned agony — heightened the realism of a massive emergency training exercise held Thursday at the Cody airport.

“I don’t know if it felt real, but ... there was some stress there,” said Cody Police Detective Sgt. Beau Egger after the drill. “It was interesting seeing some of the wounds that people had and the things they were saying, so it was good.”

Cody police represented one of many agencies that participated in the airport drill, held every three years. Others included West Park Hospital, Powell Valley Healthcare, the Powell Police Department, EagleMed, SkyWest, St. Vincent Healthcare, the Transportation Security Administration and airport personnel.

The scenario was that a woman went to the airport looking to confront her husband, who she believed was flying to see another woman.

When TSA agents refused to let the wife through security and go to her husband’s plane, she “snapped” and gunned down airport personnel and bystanders. After a brief firefight with responding Cody police officers, she fled to the waiting “airplane” (actually a bus) and took the occupants hostage.

After a lengthy negotiation resulted in only some of the hostages being released, Cody police officers stormed and took the vehicle.

Park County Drug Court Director Shannon Votaw, who explains she’s actually a very nice person, portrayed the crazed shooter.

“For me, you just had to put yourself in that role — plus we rehearsed it over and over and over, so it was like muscle memory,” Votaw said.

The majority of the bystanders were volunteers from Northwest College assistant professor Fred Ebert’s acting and interpersonal communication classes.

Ebert said his students’ biggest concern leading up to the drill was that they might be accidentally shot. However, the students were reassured by organizers that there’d be plenty of precautions to ensure no real weapons were used.

The only noted safety concern was the plight of NWC student Lane Krutzfeldt, a “victim” who spent more than an hour-and-a-half on the airport tarmac — just outside the bus — before responders came to his aid.

“It was cold,” Krutzfeldt admitted afterward.

“But,” he added, playing the role of good sport, “it was cool because I could hear everything they were saying (during negotiations).”

One of the biggest complaints from the pretend victims was that the first officers on scene didn’t give them too much attention.

“There was a lot of injured people; we recognize that, but we have to eliminate the threat first or at least contain (them),” Sgt. Egger explained. “And so that’s what we worked on first, was to try to make sure we had enough officers to contain them.”

There were so many wounded that West Park Hospital EMTs ended up (theoretically) sending most of the non-critically wounded victims to Powell Valley Healthcare. Two patients were “taken” to St. Vincent Healthcare.

The volunteers’ general consensus was that the drill didn’t feel particularly realistic overall, but the moment where Cody police deployed a flash bang and stormed the bus hit home.