Armed police and ambulance officers were called to Otago University recently after reports a live shooter had taken hostages.
Luckily it was all part of an organised emergency exercise to test systems on campus - but it follows a genuine threat made last year.
To train people for emergencies, you need to make the most realistic-looking mock-up. Otago University had an armed offenders squad running through the grounds, with guns and shields, in response to an apparent mass shooting on campus.
Otago University deputy proctor Andrew Ferguson called it "an active shooter scenario where we had two offenders in the building and multiple victims and fatalities".
"It was a challenging one for the police and for all the emergency services to be involved to respond to that."
Around 130 people were involved in the largest-ever emergency exercise carried out on campus, including police, St John Ambulance, university staff and volunteer victims.
The latter played the roles of the distressed and the walking wounded, simulated injuries providing training under pressure for medical teams.
"St John's responded as they would in an emergency of this type," says Mr Ferguson. "They triaged people where they felt it was best to triage them."
Just last year Otago University was the real-life target of a mass shooting threat made via anonymous internet message board 4chan.
That saw police patrolling the grounds last October, both in uniform and incognito, as many students stayed home in the lead-up to final exams.
"We chose the active shooter exercise because we always try to plan for the worst-case scenarios, and it's been shown overseas that it can happen anywhere," says Mr Ferguson.
The university and emergency services say the intensive exercise taught them valuable lessons, helping improve their response to any genuine incident in the future.
Newshub.
