Actors surprise firefighters in training session

A theatre group helped the firefighters prepare for traumatic situations

Firefighters were surprised during a live training session by bloodied and bruised actors who needed to be rescued.

The Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service event in Wokingham featured the help of the CAST theatre group, from Colnbrook.

Members of the group pretended to be casualties inside a burning factory on Saturday.

The aim of the training was to help the firefighters prepare to deal with traumatic situations, as well as test their responsiveness and capabilities.

Society member Alison Penfold said the "surprise" live session came about through her own first aid training.

She said: "One of the guys was a firefighter at Wokingham station and we talked about theatre groups.

"He asked if I could get a crowd up from the theatre group cast and last Saturday, it came to life."

On the day of training, Ms Penfold said members of the group were in an office space upstairs, with a storage bay downstairs.

She said: "The kitchen caught fire and our boss was outside of the building when the firefighters arrived.

"Unbeknown to the firefighters, they didn't actually know that they had live casualties that day until we started screaming for help."

She said that the crew acted professionally, and started "pulling and dragging us out of the building and made sure our injuries were attended to".

The actors were bloodied and bruised and pretended to be rescued from a fake factory fire