'They thought these people were actually dead': Wisconsin students hurt by school's fake news of friends' deaths

Many parents and students are saying that Brodhead High School went too far when it staged the deaths of four students to illustrate the importance of safe driving.

According to WMTV, students at the school were told during the morning announcements that their fellow students had been killed that morning in a car accident. Friends were understandably shocked and upset. Later on, the students were informed that the classmates were not dead and that the announcement was part of "a drill." Throughout the rest of the day students were periodically told about other students dying in car accidents.

BHS's student council is doing a year-long campaign on safe driving and all of the "dead" students were included in the drill. They were asked not to text their friends back or accept any phone calls to help drive the point home.

"A lot of our fellow friends and students actually started crying because they thought these people were actually dead and so I think a lot of them actually called their parents in school too," student Madison Trombley said.

The school district's superintendent insisted that they did not mean to cause any strife with the drill. While a few parents did complain, he believes it wasn't harmful and ultimately enforced the importance of driving carefully.

However, some students think their reaction would have been different if they had known the incident was merely a drill.

"It wasn't really effective. They were trying to teach using scare tactics which doesn't teach it just makes you not trust the teachers and any of the announcements you're going to get," Brodhead High School student Sam Bolen says.