Gunshots rang out inside a Tiyan High School hallway Thursday afternoon. They were blank shots fired by an instructor during a simulation of an active shooter threat on campus.

Before the start of the new school year, hundreds of Guam Department of Education staff and local law enforcement trained alongside each other for the past two weeks.

The ‘Surviving an Active Threat’ course was taught by three experts from Louisiana State University National Center for Biomedical Research and Training (NCBRT) Academy of Counter-Terrorist Education.

“Everyone into the hallway. Breathe in through your nose. We want you to smell what gunpowder smells like because that is a stimulus,” said Instructor Jeff Holcomb during the drill.

Shell casings littered the ground and the smell of gunpowder, similar to the smell of fireworks, lingered in the air.

“Based on what just happened, would you run out of this hall?” asked Instructor Bart Thompson. “Remember, running isn’t always the best option. The best option is to find out where the threat is because you don’t want to run into the threat.”

The three tactics are run, hide and fight– which is the last resort. But there's no telling how someone will respond to an actual active threat when it happens in real life and when the situation is fluid.

“Some people freeze under high stress,” said Instructor Dan Payne.

School staff and law enforcement personnel gained hands-on experience reacting to different scenarios. On top of the sound of gunfire, other drills included screams in the hallway and even a victim with a simulated stab wound.

While recording, KUAM News cracked a smile as actors helped to ‘scream.’ But the participants stayed serious and in character, because as Instructor Holcomb pointed out, though the chances of a school shooting happening on Guam are low, it’s never zero.

“Oftentimes we hear, especially after an incident happens, the people interviewed are like ‘I never thought that would happen here.’ We always say who heard of Uvalde, Texas before Ulvade, Texas? We tell people chances of an active threat happening where you are is so slim but it doesn’t matter what the chances are, we need to be prepared to respond,” Holcomb explained.

After two weeks of training, about 450 GDOE and law enforcement personnel will be prepared to respond and 23 of them equipped to train others.

The training was in collaboration with Guam Homeland Security and was funded by a federal grant awarded to the LSU NCBRT/ACE.