Prince George, B.C.- Members of the RCMP Emergency Response Teams from Terrace, Mackenzie  and Prince George spent Wednesday in a simulated “worse case scenario.”

The scenario was that a local sawmill CEO and his wife had been kidnapped from a downtown hotel, by three people. The “bad guys” were two men and a woman who were disgruntled former employees. The hostages were taken to the mill site, and that’s where the real exercise for the ERT began.

A command post was established,    the players went through   ‘negotiations’ and the female hostage was released.

Then, several hours later, ERT moved in and stormed the site.

This simulated emergency was played out over an 8 hour period, with 14 ERT members and several local commanders taking part.

At the end of the day,  the real lessons were learned in the debriefing after the ‘hostages’ were safe and the “bad guys” in custody. “The debriefing is where we analyze what went right, and what we could do better” says one official who was given the role as “referee”.

The ERT carry out simulated emergencies two days every month as part of their on going training.