At 8 o'clock on a recent Tuesday morning, there was a minor explosion in a lab at the Engineering Sciences Building on campus. Two lab students conducting an experiment were injured, with one rendered unconscious.
A nearby witness called 911, which, it turned out, had been waiting for the call.
Unless you happened to be in the area of 1101 W. Springfield Ave. at the time, you probably didn't hear about the incident — and for good reason.
This was just a drill, one put on every year by the Urbana Fire Department in conjunction with the UI's police, Department of Health and Safety and Public Safety Division.
But no one taking part in the annual hazmat exposure training exercise treated it with any less urgency as they would in a real-life situation, The News-Gazette observed while watching it play out.