In a concrete bunker in western Sweden, almost 40 people take turns to turn a green crank to secure their oxygen supply in a simulation of a night spent in an air raid shelter.
Sweden has been stepping up battle readiness after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and this week the municipality of Grums organised the country’s first overnight air-raid shelter exercise.
Thirty-seven Swedes — including a firefighter, a pensioner and a secretary — showed up outside the Grums nursing home carrying sleeping bags on Thursday evening.
Some were anxious before entering the underground shelter.
“Will the armoured door be completely closed?”, “How will the oxygen level be measured?” were some of the questions they asked, and project manager Therese Rosenblad patiently replied their queries.
The aim of the exercise is to observe the participants’ behaviour underground and draw lessons to make a stay in the enclosed shelter “more comfortable,” should the need arise.
“We want to know how people react if you keep 40 people here, what is the temperature like, what is the CO2 level,” Rosenblad said.
She said the war in Ukraine “has absolutely made Sweden more aware of what could happen,” and “really increased our willingness to get prepared.”
‘Unsecure future’
The organiser divides the volunteers into 10 groups, which head for the bunker where a group meets their first challenge: getting a man in a wheelchair down a very steep grey staircase.
The man in his fifties is taken out of his chair, then strapped onto an orange stretcher that two men carefully carry down.
Grums has deliberately chosen varied profiles to test the difficulties that could arise in the event of an actual crisis.
That prompted secretary, and new mother, Kally Frojd to volunteer.
“You know something like this can happen,” she said holding her six-month-old son Knut in her arms, adding that it’s important to know how “to take care of a child in this kind of area.”
“We have an unsecure future,” the 29-year-old said as she finished inflating her mattress, noting that Russia is a “big threat right now.”
Patrik Jordansson, a carpenter in his fifties, was also “concerned about all the problems in Europe and Ukraine.”
That prompted him to join Sweden’s Home Guard, even though he thinks the prospect of war in Sweden is “not so probable.”
“Maybe they can drop bombs in Stockholm, or disturb the infrastructure, the electricity,” he said.
Fainting
Once they are settled in, the participants form a circle and introduce themselves one by one to break the ice.
Then one of them suddenly fainted. The air in the shelter, built nearly 60 years ago, is heavy.
Throughout the night, volunteers took turns to turn a green crank to pump oxygen into the space, where a trash can serves as an improvised toilet.
The lights were cut at 10 pm.
With her bag of popcorn, her book and her fluffy pillow, Annika Alfredsson insisted she would “sleep like a princess.”
A few hours later, marked by the uninterrupted turning of the crank, she disappointedly admitted “I didn’t sleep like a princess.”
At around 6:00 am, Jordansson jotted down his impressions in a notebook and said his back was “a little sore.”
His feedback, like everyone else’s, will feed into a study, which will be passed on to the defence ministry.
With a smile, Jordansson concluded that the night was “not so bad,” adding it “must be a lot worse in Ukraine.”
“I hope we’ll never be in this situation for real,” he said.
