NEW SALEM ­;- Eleven schoolchildren were rescued from a bus Saturday, their faces blood-red as they were carried away in ambulances, but they laughed about the ordeal because it was all planned in advance.

The blood on their faces was as fake as the bus accident, a scenario in which a deranged man filled a pickup truck with explosives and rammed the bus. Worse yet, the pickup was also pulling a large tank of anhydrous ammonia and the bus was left stranded on the railroad tracks.

It was all part of a full-scale exercise for emergency responders in Morton County.

Tammy Lapp-Harris, the Morton County emergency manager, said about 90 people took part in the exercise, which was put on with the help of the North Dakota League of Cities and North Dakota Association of Counties as part of homeland security training through the Division of Emergency Management.

Lapp-Harris said it was the first full-scale exercise held in New Salem.

"It's just really good training for all of the responders involved,"Lapp-Harris said.

Emergency officials and law enforcement from Morton County, New Salem, Almont and Hebron were involved in the drill.

Officials did their best to make the scenario as realistic as possible.

In addition to the accident scene, a command center was set up in the New Salem Auditorium, which included a place for families to get information about the victims and a place for the media to be briefed on the mock attack.

Members of the media, who were invited to the event, were told by a deputy of the Morton County Sheriff's department to leave the scene of the accident. The deputy took down names of reporters, questioned why they were there and threatened a vehicle search before they were allowed to leave the scene.

Lapp-Harris said dealing with the media was all part of the event, even though reporters covering the mock attack were not informed beforehand that they would become part of the drill.

"That's actually what's going to happen, is they're going to keep people off of the scene of the accident,"she said.

Alex Bibb, 13, was one of the mock victims of the attack.

Bibb said the emergency responders could have been a little quicker in rescuing the victims on the bus.

"They could have done it faster, but they did the best they could,"Bibb said.

Bryce Tellmann, 15, said he thinks the exercise was a good idea.

"I think it would be beneficial to first responders because real things don't happen much here,"Tellmann said.

After the rescue operations were complete, officials held a mock press conference, where they announced that there were 11 patients taken to area hospitals.