Students at a Wisconsin high school are upset after they were falsely told four students had died in a car accident as part of a safe driving exercise.

According to WMTV-TV in Madison, students at Brodhead High School in southern Wisconsin were told during morning announcements on Oct. 26 that four of their classmates had died in a “T-bone” car crash that involved texting and driving.

But there had not been a car crash. The students who were selected to “die” during the exercise were notified of the drill ahead of time and were told not to use their cell phones to text fellow students and let them know that they were OK.

An announcement was made a few minutes later notifying students about the exercise, but not before tears had been shed.

"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," Brodhead High School student Madison Trombley told WMTV.

The school district superintendent Leonard Lueck said that he did get calls from upset parents about the drill, but the drill “was not intended to cause any harm or stress or scare students.”

“While we stand by the worthiness of the activity, we recognize the flaws with how it was communicated,” Lueck told the Washington Post in an email. “We will evaluate the value of this activity and either make changes to how it is communicated or not do the activity again.”

Alex Hider is a writer for the E.W. Scripps National Desk. Follow him on Twitter @alexhider.