FRYEBURG – A corner of the Fryeburg Fairgrounds was crowded Saturday with emergency vehicles and the bodies of injured disaster victims, but don’t start calling people to see if they’re all right.

The crews and victims were participating in a training exercise to test the response capabilities of county departments in the event of a mass-casualty incident. The event was organized by the Oxford County Emergency Management Agency.

“I’m very excited that we’re actually out here on the ground practicing,” said Scott Parker, director of the county EMA.

The scenario called for multiple victims from a nightmarish accident on the busiest day of the Fryeburg Fair, which is held the first week of October. According to Bill Haynes, director of the Waterford EMA and a public information officer for the drill, the volunteer fairgoers were injured when a crashing helicopter sent debris flying in all directions.

If that weren’t bad enough, the event also called for one of the pieces of wreckage to hit a barrel of nitric acid on the back of a pickup truck, creating a hazardous contamination on some of the grounds.

Haynes said the event included participants from 20 fire departments, 12 rescue services and 10 police departments.

“Those are all scripted,” he said. “They’re part of the Level 3 alert.”

Yellow flags marked the sites of casualties, and volunteer victims were given tags to identify the severity of their injuries. Each victim had a story to tell, having been briefed on how they got their particular wounds.

Lisa Costello said she had been blinded by something after the crash occurred and received a head wound. She also said she was “really cold,” although that was more a symptom of the dreary morning.

Near the back of the field where the exercise was staged, Deena Emerson and Matt Jensen of Fryeburg Rescue tended to Heather Gould, who had been upgraded to a first priority case after saying she couldn’t feel her legs. She said she had been hit by wreckage from the helicopter and was experiencing neck and back pain.

The emergency workers cut no corners in their response to the mock disaster, lending an eerie sense of realism to the drama. But the exercise was not without its moments of levity.

“I feel like a mummy,” laughed Gould as Emerson and Jensen strapped her to a backboard. She also noted a new injury: unable to move her arms in the straps, a mosquito was biting her neck without repercussion.

Many of the victims had been outside in the cold for much of the morning, and an administrative decision was later made to get the remaining victims off the ground and into the ambulances where they could warm up. Parker also said a victim started to have respiratory trouble during the drill, so the exercise was briefly halted to treat him.

Parker said the participating units had been preset for the exercise.

“Things are going to unfold a lot more slowly,” he said, noting that such a setup would lead to better overall organization in the response to a real disaster.

Parker said that county towns are excellent at mutual aid for small-scale disasters, but have not had as much experience in county-wide responses to mass casualty disasters. He said the exercise would help the towns coordinate in such an event.

Some of the EMA’s specialized vehicles, such as the Mass Casualty Incident trailer, were present at the drill. The CERT/ARES trailer, run by the Community Emergency Response Team and the Amateur Radio Emergency Service, helped relay communications at the scene.

“It’s such a burden for communications when something like this happens,” said Brad Saunders of the CERT/ARES team. Saunders said he and other members of the team would handle some of the communications for responders.

According to Ron Blake, a staff member of His Place Teen Center in Oxford, several members of the center played casualties or assisted with ham radio operations at the scene. Blake was a participant himself, a victim of helicopter shrapnel.

The day also saw training by CERT and the Community Animal Response Team in setting up shelters at the Molly Ockett Middle School. After being transported by ambulance to the school, the victims were transformed into natural disaster victims who needed a place to stay.

Volunteers from CERT registered the victims as they arrived from the Fairgrounds before releasing them from the exercise. According to Chet Charette, director of the Fryeburg EMA, the school is a regional Red Cross shelter that can hold up to 400 people.

He said the CERT volunteers were also providing “welfare and comfort” to the volunteer victims in the form of food and warmth.

In the nearby bus garage, the Community Animal Response Team had set up a temporary shelter for five dogs and three cats, all pets of volunteers. CART is designed to take in the pets of those going to the Red Cross shelter at the school.

“It was really good to have the exercise,” said Storm Coleman, head of pet registration. She said the event allowed CART to figure out what parts of the registration paperwork required clarification.

Ken Ward, the CART director, said the organization hopes to set up another pet refuge in Dixfield and have the shelters set up in advance of any disaster.

“It was a learning experience,” he said of the exercise.