A dirty bomb exploded at Logan Airport last week and emergency personnel rushed to the scene and transported victims to local hospitals to be treated for radiation exposure.

This simulation drill was enacted throughout Boston to test emergency response procedures in the event of the detonation of a dirty bomb, a device that contains radioactive material that is released into the air upon explosion.

“September 11th was an indication to us,” said Jeff D. Ventura, spokesperson for Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “What if, instead of New York, it happened here? How prepared are we to handle disaster on a large scale?”

The drill, dubbed Operation Prometheus, began at Logan Airport on Thursday with the simulated explosion of a dirty bomb on an inbound United Airlines flight from France, and continued on Friday when 10 hospitals in the Conference of Boston Teaching Hospitals received victims coming in for treatment.

The main objective of the drill was to facilitate communication and cooperation among all emergency response agencies involved.

Over 50 agencies participated in the drill, including the Massachusetts National Guard, FBI, American Red Cross, United States Coast Guard and Harvard School of Public Health.

Girl Scout troops, schoolchildren and Harvard Medical School students joined in on the effort, as well.

“With all the federal, state and local agencies, it was alphabet soup,” said Stephen Morash, Boston Emergency Management Agency deputy director. “The immenseness of this exercise is something you wouldn’t see before in this city.”

Prior to the drill, all the agencies gathered in a conference hall to perform a tabletop exercise, in which they ran through a fake dirty bomb scenario so that all involved could communicate and ask questions, according to Ventura.

At 8:15 on Friday morning, the teaching hospitals were notified of the dirty bomb explosion. Their role in the drill was to assess the procedures in place for diagnosing and treating contaminated patients.

Children’s Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center were the three Harvard teaching hospitals involved in the functional part of the drill—testing hospital care—said Sarah J. Hamilton, director of area planning and development for the Medical Academic and Scientific Community Organization (MASCO).

“We executed a code amber, like a code blue on television,” Ventura said. “The hospital is locked down, we go into emergency response mode, and prepare for incoming casualties.”

Nonessential appointments are canceled and patients are relocated to other parts of the hospital to free bed space.

Twelve radioactive passengers were assigned symptoms, accepted for treatment, decontaminated and then evaluated, said Jean M. Hickey, head nurse in the Brigham and Women’s emergency department.

Harvard Medical School students volunteered to act as victims and wore tattered clothes to act their parts convincingly.