Not your everyday Armageddon

Early last month Glacier Park International Airport resumed full operations after repaving acres of runway.

The work necessitated the closure of the airport for much of July, when dry weather was most assured.

Airport staff also made an opportunity of it, tipping off a crisis July 15.

As the temperature hovered near 90 degrees, dozens of people spread out in a field behind the terminal. Some sprawled with oozing wounds; a few walked about wailing; and many quietly sat waiting for responders and their time to shine. 

For a drill mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration every three years, the airport gathers volunteers and responders to test emergency capabilities. In the event of a real catastrophe, you would want any kinks in procedures eliminated beforehand. 

A herd of 75 turned up at the quiet airport, including new Flathead residents Amy and Dwayne. 

“I saw it online and said, ‘Sounds fun,’” Amy said as we milled around.  

"We moved here just this week,” her husband Dwayne said. “She hasn’t steered me wrong yet.” 

At a large airport building, we donned orange shirts emblazoned with “Exercise participant.” Then we were assigned roles and sent to makeup.

“Do you want to be dead?” one of the organizers asked me. 

“Sure!” I said, but the woman in front of me in line shook her head. She said sotto voce, “You’ll be the last to be picked up because what else are they going to do with you?” 

I went for a different assignment: 

“Right forearm deformity 

“Left thigh burn 

“Ambulatory 

“Pulse present” 

With copious amounts of Elmer’s, Vaseline and fake blood, we readied for disaster. The scene looked like Halloween, minus the candy and plus a good cause.

“At any point anyone can opt out,” the airport’s Michael Dickerson reminded us. “Have a lot of fun!” Another organizer stood at the door, asking, “Anybody need a little blood pick-me-up?”

Out in the field we watched firefighters tackle a blaze on a shell of an airplane, which added to the temperature yet still gave me the shivers. 

My neighbors idly watched the action. One wondered, “How many times are they going to put out that fire?” then went back to reading about grant writing on her phone. She fundraises for Serious Juju. Someone said, “This reminds me of when I was an extra on ‘Yellowstone.’” 

As the emergency vehicles arrived on the mass casualty scene, we screamed and moaned for crews from Kalispell, Bigfork, Three Rivers, North Valley and more. They worked the crowd, applying triage tags. A few people got airlifted. 

My own tag went from yellow to green and finally I returned to the makeup building, where I saw Amy.

“Your husband’s doing amazing,” someone reported to her from the field. 

“Well, he’s dead,” Amy said, as she shrugged and chugged water. 

Another participant, who’d brought his family from Whitefish, deemed the exercise “definitely an improvement” from a few years ago.

“We’re all volunteers,” he said. “We’re doing this to help them get better."

Last week I bumped into Dwayne. He would have no consoling about playing dead. “I liked it!” he said brightly. “I fell asleep.” 

Margaret E. Davis, executive director of the Northwest Montana History Museum, can be reached at [email protected].