With the sound of gunfire, smoke pouring through the halls and victims of an active shooter screaming and spilling blood, Northwest College Emergency Medical Service (EMS) students worked feverishly to triage the victims. At times it looked and sounded so real, it was hard not to think of all the students nationwide who have actually experienced a mass shooting.

Despite the fake blood, training ammo rounds and a smoke machine pumping out nontoxic smoke, everyone took the exercise Wednesday at the college in earnest. Even though many of the students involved were born well after the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, which occurred 26 years ago this past Easter Sunday, the fear of it happening in our tight community is real.

Every student and teacher involved Tuesday has been through active shooting drills, known as ALICE Training. But there is still an urgency with every training opportunity, said Powell Police Chief Jim Rhea, who has tactical experience with an active shooter situation.

“I think Columbine really kicked it off to a whole different level of awareness, the need for a difference in training, a different approach to especially school shootings and multi attacker situations,” he said. “It’s something that we live with every day. The potential, that’s why we do these trainings, is to make sure that we’re ready. If it happens, then our skills are sharp. We hope it never does, but we are at least going to be ready.”

Powell police officers started the training mission before 8 a.m. by neutralizing the active shooter — twice, just for practice. Students from the Criminal Justice Department acted as the active shooters. Then Powell Police Department officers trained on Rescue Task Force operations with medical staff as a team.

The training mission involved Powell police, the Park County Sheriff’s Office, Powell and Cody EMS, students and professors from the NWC EMS Education Program and Powell High School students and teachers.

Kandi Bennett, Family and Consumer Science teacher at PHS, went room to room prior to the rescue and recovery stage of the training doing makeup for students who were tasked with playing wounded and dead students. After squirting fake blood on Ashlee Jacobsen, the sophomore said mass shootings are something she rarely thinks about, because Powell is such a safe community, but she’s been going through training since elementary school.

“It’s definitely something that sticks with you,” she said, adding she knows it can happen anywhere.

Bennett then created her own wounds (shot in the thigh and short of breath) and could be screaming for help loudly along with the several students until help arrived.

In another room you could hear Curtis Muecke’s labored breathing as he simulated being shot in the neck while Ryann Hutzenbieler acted out laying on the floor dead after being shot in the head. Northwest College EMS students rushed in to check on their fake injuries, walking through the fake blood as they worked.

Bennett said many of the students are planning to work in the medical industry and others were from speech and drama classes.

Muecke recently won basic health care skills at the State Skills USA contest, which included written tests, classes and a speech. He heads to Atlanta to compete in the national contest in June.

“I had to take vital signs, respiration and blood pressure, And I had to give a speech,” said Muecke, who is considering a possible career in health care.

The training also included life flight training as First Flight of Wyoming landed a helicopter in the field south of Colter Hall. Many of the NWC students participating are already working in the field and gained valuable experience from the mock incident, said EMS Education Program Director Steven Haggard.

“This is something we hope our students never have to utilize. But given that we have several schools and we have the college here, if it is needed, our students have had this experience so that they can understand what goes into actual response to something like this, a big mass casualty event, and how to treat and transport lots of patients and get the best care to the most people possible.”

More than 50 actors participated in the training, as well as dozens of teachers, staff and law enforcement personnel.

After a significant dip during the pandemic, school shootings have increased to record levels every year since, with 83 recorded school shootings nationwide in 2024.