STATE Emergency Service (SES) volunteers were out in force at Lake Moogerah on Sunday after a hot air balloon with 15 people on board crash landed.

With two people ‘dead’ and 13 suffering burns and multiple fractures, about 50 SES volunteers from west Brisbane descended on the area to search for the injured people and to treat their injuries.

Fortunately for all concerned the crash was just an SES training scenario, but a casual observer could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.

With all injured “patients” made up with moulage, the art of applying mock injuries for the purpose of training, the burns, fractures and subsequent amputations looked all too real.

So real in fact that one patient had to endure an on-the-spot amputation of her arm complete with all visual effects.

“These practice days are vital to prepare for the real thing,” he said.

“It is an opportunity for the volunteers and everybody else to work together.

“The exercise identified some gaps in training that we will now be able to  improve.

“We found out there are huge issues with communication (in the Lake Moogerah area) and that we need to develop a system that can cater for that.

“It was also great to be able to work with other units to maintain our ability to work with other people.”

According to Mr Healey, working with realistic injuries desensitises the volunteers so when they do have to deal with the real thing, they will know exactly what to do.

As well as the search and rescue following the balloon crash on Sunday, the SES volunteers also practised survival training, making fires and finding water techniques on Saturday.

Overall Mr Healey said the exercise was a great success and well worth the 350 hours of planning that went into it.