Rebecca Dinkelbach: directing disaster
From overseeing role players to creating realistic rubble sites, Rebecca Dinkelbach ensures that MODEX are a realistic testing ground for participants.
By Knowledge Network – Staff member
Rebecca Dinkelbach is exercise director at EU MODEX and project coordinator at Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe e. V.’s Competence Center EU Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (EUCC). She holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Hazard Control from Hamburg University of Applied Sciences and a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration, Logistics & E-Business from the University of Applied Sciences Koblenz.
Today, as the exercise director within EU MODEX, Rebecca heads the planning of complex multinational disaster exercises involving medical and urban search and rescue teams from across Europe.
Since 2017, Rebecca’s work has combined strategic oversight with overseeing the smaller operational details. While ‘leading the planning and the design of the exercises together with the whole team of the consortium and some other key staff, we prepare all the exercises in advance’, she explains. The role involves multitasking: communication with their desk officers in Brussels, venue management, as well as handling all internal logistics, which vary with each exercise.
While rescue teams in each exercise bring their own specialist equipment, Rebecca’s role is to ensure that teams cooperate smoothly, the equipment functions reliably and the exercise delivers a highly realistic feel. In an earthquake scenario, for example, urban search and rescue teams prepare rubble sites which role-players must enter to extract the victims buried under collapsed structures. Her role is to oversee all steps leading up to that exercise, ensure that all elements work as intended and that role players are comfortable and safe at all times.
‘We even do little tricks’, she notes with a smile. ‘Normally there's a second entrance or something. So, we put the actors in, the rescue teams search for them, they locate them and then we pull them out. The rescuers might dig for two or three hours or even more, and shortly before they make their way to the next person, we reinstate that actor back in.’ This is done out of respect for the role-players, who may have to endure physically demanding conditions, such as being trapped in confined spaces or performing in the rain, extremely high or sub-zero temperatures.
Another serious challenge, Rebecca says, is ‘to take people from exercise mode into mission mode’. At some venues, such as dedicated training villages in Denmark, entire mock towns can convincingly replicate earthquake-stricken communities. In other locations, however, the illusion is more difficult to maintain; outside the immediate exercise area, everyday life continues as normal. So, ‘details matter’, she highlights. ‘That's why we try to train our role-players not to mention the word “exercise” because they are [supposed to be] in a real disaster.’
Authenticity is enhanced when real representatives from the host nation participate in various roles, 'not only in playing the victim, but maybe someone from the host nation representing a ministry, because they know the background of their country’. Their cultural insight, she notes, adds significant depth and realism to the exercise. At the same time, this requires discipline. Participants must remain fully in character and maintaining that shared commitment to realism is hard. But, when it works, it really pays off.
Over the years, Rebecca has watched the programme evolve. Since she joined in 2019, exercises have grown larger, more structured and more professional. But expectations have risen too. The simulations now serve as a crucial testing ground, particularly for interoperability, as participants must coordinate across languages, procedures and cultures. And sometimes, the most valuable lessons are unexpectedly practical. Teams frequently report small issues identified during the exercise, such as tents that were not truly windproof, for example. Discovering that weakness during a controlled four-day simulation, she notes, is far preferable to discovering it two days into a real two-week mission abroad.
All the planning, technical work and accumulated expertise aside, Rebecca returns repeatedly to one central theme: the people. People are at the centre of these exercises because success relies on cooperation. As she explains: ‘There’s a lot of work to put into it, but also a lot of compassion. And if you don't have the right people in your team, you cannot achieve anything.’
As she reflects on the experience, her feelings are clear: ‘I’m always proud of the team and what we manage to accomplish at the end.’
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The Knowledge Network – Staff member
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