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ALBANY, GA --
44 first responders and nurses experienced a very realistic training course simulating how to react to a bomb-in-a-theatre situation in Tifton on Friday.

The Tift Regional Medical Center partnered with the Georgia Department of Public Health to offer the course that included drama club students from Tift County High School and a special effects makeup artist from Atlanta.

TRMC Emergency Management Coordinator Eddie Senkbeil says they wanted to make the situation as real as possible for the trainees to ensure they would be prepared for a real-life situation if it were to ever happen.

RN BSN Ashley Amon says having this type of training is the difference between life and death when you're in a mass casualty situation.

11th grader, Tiffany Padgett, says all she could think of during the drill were the people who went through the movie theatre situations earlier this year.

10th grader, Carlos Diaz, who played a disoriented child trying to get to his mom, says this class is extremely important for first responders to teach them how to calmly assess the situation.

Senkbeil says nurses often don't get to see what goes on in this type of setting because they're getting the patients after the  first responders have seen them, but this will teach them how to treat and care for patients who need immediate help before anyone else has gotten to them.

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