COLUMBUS - It's a worst-case scenario: A gunman entering a school, shooting people and taking hostages.

Fortunately, it was just an exercise at Central Community College Tuesday. It involved five different law enforcement agencies, including Columbus police, the Platte County Sheriff's Office and the Nebraska State Patrol.

Law enforcement said they hold these drills with one or two schools a year. It gives them a chance to put their training to work in a real-world scenario where they use their skills in shooting response and hostage negotiation.

“There’s multiple things that we were testing and we’re looking for mistakes because that’s how you measure success on one of these active shooter scenarios, is your ability to identify those mistakes and learn from those mistakes,” NSP Sgt. Trinity Jones.

It's also a chance for the school to test their emergency procedures.

With mass shootings becoming a common occurrence it may be easy to think it can happen at your school.

“It makes me feel kind of scared," said Luis Neave, a CCC student. "Sometimes, I do see it on the news and I’m kind of like worried about it.”

That's why Sgt. Jones said they hold these drills: In case it really happens.

"All that training kicks in to where you’re moving towards the threat, you hear gun fire, you’re moving towards the gun fire," Sgt. Jones said. "The gun fire stops, then you do a little more detailed search, but you’re always driving towards the threat. The ultimate goal of a police officer is to have that gun pointed at you so that it’s not pointed at any kid.”

Some of those kids volunteered to play the "victims" in the drill. They got a front-row seat to watching crews go to work.

“How prepared they are. It makes you feel a little safer that they do do these drills and that they brush up on their skills and stuff,” student Bailey Keller.

This was only half the Tuesday. The "victims" were transported to Columbus Community Hospital, where staff simulated what they would do if multiple victims came in at one time.

“We basically overwhelmed our department. We had to really rely on each other for resources," CCH Emergency Department Director Sue Deyke said. "When we know there is going to be an event with a lot of people coming in, we activate our trauma system and that brings down extra resources to our department.”

While this wasn’t the first active shooter drill that CCH has participated in, Deyke said it was still a learning experience for her and the staff.

“The staff is very well prepared, they’re very well trained," she said. "They all seemed to work together well.”

Overall, the drill was a success in Deyke’s eyes, who said she knew the staff would be ready to handle the challenge. The drill solidified some of the emergency department’s processes, and she is confident the department will be ready to respond in any scenario.

“It basically fine-tuned the process," she said. "The staff knows how to respond appropriately.”