Garden City Community College public safety students test out a day on the job

Framed by a flashing ambulance, firetruck and the smashed scene of a staged car crash, students in the fire, EMS and criminal justice departments at Garden City Community College moved and met in small packs of peers with similar uniforms, evaluating the accident.

Fire and EMS students had just arrived and all officers in training were still deciding what to do next.

“They saw that they needed EMS and fire … so now the idea is all that three disciplines have to figure out how to work together,” said Department of Public Safety instructor Brandy Unruh. “So we’ll see if they can figure it out.”

Similar faux-scenes, organized by instructors and starring drama students or mannequins, would pop up around campus in the hours to come. From 7 a.m. to noon, students sat in a makeshift dispatch in the John Collins Vocational Technical Building waiting to be called to the sites of homicides, missing children and pets, a stolen purse, car and chicken, all part of the Department of Public Safety’s annual Scenario Day.

For the next week, students will review the cases and draw conclusions, but the morning’s events all had one purpose: give GCCC public safety students a chance to experience the fast-paced jobs they are pursuing.