Emergency officials say it's one of their worse case scenarios, a school bus full of children involved in a serious accident. Today, in a training exercise, they played that scenario out.

The event put rescuers into an unknown situation and asked them to respond just as they would in a real emergency.

"They said this is something they see on a regular basis, but it was such a magnitude, two here, two there, twenty-four on the bus," said Stephanie Steward, director of Bath County Emergency management.

The scenario involved a driver hitting a school bus head-on. Stewart says this is the first training of this type since she's been on the job.

"Because we've had natural disasters, tornadoes, ice storms, flooding. We decided this time to do something a little different," said Stewart.

Bus drivers from across the county were also involved. They played the parents of the children on the bus, giving them a close up look at how firefighters and police would respond if they were in an accident.

A dozen agencies took part in the event, including a medical helicopter team.

Once the training exercise was done everyone involved still had work to do. They all took part in a discussion about what went right, and what could be improved.

The National Highway Safety Administration says since the year 2000 fewer than one percent of fatal crashes were classified as school transportation-related. Of those the majority were in the other vehicles involved in the accidents.