FIVE people were "killed" in a multiple pile up on a North-East dual carriageway yesterday.
More than 30 people were injured, some seriously, after the accident on the A690, in Durham, at 10am.
Fire crews helped cut people from their car, while paramedics set up a makeshift hospitals by the side of the road to treated the wounded.
Fortunately, it was only an exercise as part of ongoing training for the emergency services.
The drama was played out on Meadowfield Industrial Estate and started when a bus, full of schoolchildren, had supposedly collided with a lorry.
Ten battered cars, trucks and vans were positioned behind the bus as if they had been involved in a pile-up.
Emergency services had to ascertain who needed to be treated first and work with police and paramedics to prioritise their work. Medics then had to decide which of the region's hospitals to send the injured to.
Dennis Finn, emergency planning officer with the North-East Ambulance Service, said: "Unexpected scenarios were there for them to deal with.
"There is no point telling them exactly what they are going into. We find that we achieve the maximum amount of learning this way."
The aim is to iron out any problems in the event that a similar incident occurs in the future.
Incident commander for County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service Alan Kernohan said: "What we have to do is practice working together so we can do it in a real scenario if we have to.
"It is about working out how to manage our resources.
"Things like this do happen and this is a very realistic exercise.
"This is a scene of carnage and we have a very serious role to play.
"We are training constantly and getting it right is a very important part of a firefighter's job."
As well as the fire service, police and ambulance service representatives from the air ambulance, Army, Highways Agency and St John Ambulance attended the exercise.
Inspector Roy Smith, of Durham Police, said: "It has gone very well and clearly the emergency services are well practised in responding to incidents such as this.
"We are required to do this under the Civil Contingencies Act. It improves our awareness, not only of our role but of our interaction with other agencies."
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