Blood and excitement at ACU mass-casualty training event

In a nearby quadrangle, smoke billows out as the hapless victims of an improvised explosive device lay trapped under a mound of rubble.

The scene takes place at Ballarat's Australian Catholic University campus.

It's not a new action-flick being shot in Ballarat - it's the university's annual mass-casualty incident training event, something its paramedicine students for years have looked forward to.

In its sixth year running, ACU sessional academic Dr Helen Webb said the training exercise, and its gruesome accuracy, gives paramedicine students an opportunity to test their skill sets in a high-pressure environment.

"It is one of the largest exercises in the state. There will be approximately 60 casualties that the students will have to deal with today," Dr Webb said.

"They are ambulance commanders. They will be working with all of the other functional emergency services to form the first level of command. The first on scene."

The fourth-year paramedicine students were joined by teams from Victoria Police, Fire Rescue Victoria and CFA, SES and the army for the purposes of the simulation.

In all, almost 300 people were involved in the exercise, with the role of the wounded being played by other paramedicine and nursing students at the university.

Each had a different wound the paramedics would have to treat, with special effects done by the students themselves making the injuries seem all the more real.

"They learn about inter-operability, which is one of our major objectives to get all of the services working together and understanding each others capacities and capabilities," Dr Webb said.

"They learn command and control, they learn about communications, how to assess a scene and triage, treatment and transport."

ACU paramedicine students Ebony Storrar and Claire Capes played casualties at the event in previous years but were now taking on the role of operational commanders.

Ms Storrar said she had been looking forward to testing her mettle at the event since the beginning of her course.

"I am nervous to start off with but also so incredibly excited. Today is this massive thing that you know about from the start of your paramedicine education degree," Ms Storrar said.

"We are lucky enough that we get to be the big honcho and give a shot at being the commanders. Just to give us a little taste of what it might be like in the real world."

Ms Capes said the paramedicine class has been learning about mass casualty event responses as part of their coursework, and was eager to apply what they had learned.

"It is really exciting because this whole semester we have been learning about major incidents. We have been doing mini-simulations in class. Today is about doing a real one and putting our knowledge together," Ms Capes said.

"We won't get another opportunity to do something as big as this, so today is a really valuable day."

Fire Rescue Victoria commander Paul Horton was on scene for the training event, and said the day was as much a training exercise for the firefighters as it was for the students.

"The value of interagency cooperation can never be understated. We have seen across the world when events happen, and we will never get a heads up for when they are coming, the ability for agencies to come together and do what they need to do," Mr Horton said.

"There is value in proper exercising. It is very impressive the level of detail that is here today. It might be a little confronting for some, but this is as close as it gets."

Beyond situations such as a mass shooter incident, or bombing, Dr Webb said students would be able to apply the inter-agency principles to bushfires or natural disasters.

"We follow what is called an 'all hazards approach'. The way we manage a scene is pretty much the same no matter what kind of event we go to. We follow the same principles," Dr Webb said.

"I think 9/11 was the biggest proof. If emergency services don't know each other and don't train together, then the response will fail."