Lights and sirens greet students
Experience is not the best way to learn how to escape a burning house or discover the stupidity of drink-driving.
But Massey University students were given the next closest thing, with emergency simulations as part of their welcome back for semester two.
The annual Flatting Expo, held yesterday, provided information for first-year halls of residence students preparing to take the leap into flatting for the first time next year.
This year is the first time emergency services have been invited.
Firefighters set up a new virtual-reality experience created with footage from a Palmerston North house-burning exercise last year.
Students could step inside to watch the fire take hold.
Several hundred people had a go, senior firefighter Barry Madgwick said.
‘‘We’ve had a range of reactions, from being extremely scared to being amazed at how fast fire can go, so it’s a really effective way of getting the message across about how to get out, get low and stay low, and that working smoke alarms save lives.’’
Police put students through a cone slalom, using distortion goggles that mimic how eyesight is affected after drinking almost to the legal drink-drive limit.
Constable Garry Liu said students were surprised to find themselves wandering outside the marked lines, tripping and bumping into the cones.
‘‘You have double vision and you can’t really see as straight, and you’re a little dizzy.
‘‘I think I’d crash within a minute because your reaction time is actually very slow, because your perception’s slow,’’ Liu said.