Kaye Schuler, Margie Hale and Marie Gallivan skipped their trip to a senior center last month to do something they considered more important.

Like extras in a movie, the elderly friends joined a few hundred volunteers feigning illness and frustration in a drill meant to help authorities prepare for a flu pandemic.

Some volunteers seized the Hollywood moment, pretending to swoon and faint with dramatic flourish. To give the scene a touch of reality, people donned face masks and rolled up their sleeves to get vaccinated, even though medical crews were only pretending to give shots.

At one point, two women waiting for "shots" started fighting, acting out a desperate struggle for help that authorities fear could accompany a real outbreak.

"Hey! Look at Paris and Nicole back there," said Rollie Buchanan, who took a break from his day job with Kennesaw State University's housing program.

About 500 people played parts in the emergency drill, one of many held nationwide amid fears of a pandemic from avian flu or some other ailment.

So what would entice ordinary people to give up a huge chunk of their day to participate in the KSU drill? Was it the boxed lunch of pasta salad and a roast beef sandwich? Or the chance to go home with some of the emergency kits that organizers distributed to every few volunteers, just in case an actual disaster strikes?

The senior center contingent mentioned civic duty. "We don't get many chances to help," Schuler said. "It's a pleasure for us seniors to be here."

Gallivan said she wants to know what to do if avian flu hits metro Atlanta.

Tina Isaac, a KSU nursing student, got extra credit.

Organizers scrambled to find volunteers after realizing they had scheduled the drill in the middle of spring break, depriving them of students who might otherwise play victims.

To compensate, they bused in seniors and persuaded KSU staffers to take a few hours off. Those volunteers joined a much larger group of health care and emergency-management workers.

Volunteers signed up to be health workers or patients at a vaccine clinic. The scenario was that Atlanta was four months into a major flu outbreak -- like the one in 1918 -- and shots would be given at a temporary clinic in the university's student center.

Organizers gave each volunteer a blue wristband. Some wristbands had a black "X" on them. The people with those wristbands were supposed to act out -- yell, cry, push, whatever -- but the acting bug proved contagious, prompting a warning that unscripted chaos was not part of the plan.

"Tone it down," said Ron Hernandez with the Office of Emergency Preparedness. "Unless you are told to pretend that you are sick, you need to stay strong and healthy."

One person in line noted that the turmoil gave authorities a dose of what may await if a real outbreak were to hit.

Wayne Jones, chief of emergency management at Dobbins Air Reserve Base, decided to test the process after getting to the front of the line for treatment.

"How am I going to pay for this?" he yelled. "I don't have a job! Aren't you going to help the poor people?"

Health care workers rushed to tell him he wouldn't have to pay.

Later, he gave them a passing grade, but he worries that there won't be enough health care workers to keep the peace at clinics if a pandemic breaks out.

"This helped us see what we may face if something happens," Jones said. "It made it real."

-- This article is a reprint from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.