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Emergency exercise at Leeds hospital
A fire, an explosion and a siege – those were the situations facing health workers in a major emergency rehearsal exercise.
Volunteers and actors played badly injured patients in Exercise Nightingale at the now-closed Cookridge Hospital in Leeds.
Medics, 80 West Yorkshire Fire Service personnel and 25 police officers responded as though the incident was real so hospital managers could run through their emergency plan.
An explosion in a lift was supposed to have left several people dead and fire spreading through wards.
At the same time West Yorkshire Fire Service had to deal with a scenario where a psychiatric patient armed with a knife took staff and patients hostage.
West Yorkshire Police hostage negotiators also took part.
The 'hostage taker' appeared sporadically on a fire escape to shout at the emergency services while his 'hostages' banged on windows and waved a white flag.
The exercise finished when the hospital was evacuated.
Leeds Teaching Hospitals TrustSign up to the Yorkshire Evening Post's email alertsThe full article contains 172 words and appears in EP Leeds First & County newspaper.
