[PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]

Lakewood on Tuesday held its first -ever Township-wide Mass Casualty Incident training drill, simulating�an explosion at the Blue Claws stadium.

Emergency personnel arrived at the scene to find dozens of patients injured in a gas explosion on the upper level of the stadium building.

All of Lakewood�s Emergency Services were called in, as well as mutual aid from neighboring townships.

After tagging the patients with either green, yellow, red and black tags � with black being a deceased party � the patients were then brought out to the Triage area, where they awaited treatments on a priority basis. Once receiving initial treatment, the injured were placed on waiting ambulances and transported to various hospitals.�Some�patients needed to be airlifted.

It took about two hours to locate�remove all the patients from the building and to secure the scene.

�This really tests our abilities to respond to a real emergency,� says Committeeman and Liaison to Emergency Services Meir Lichtensteien.

A similar drill was held last October in Lakewood, though this one was on a much larger scale.

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(Source: TLS)