Police, emergency workers practice active shooter scenario at Central High

Students and emergency responders participated in a staged active-shooter exercise Thursday at Central High School.

Local agencies and Gundersen Health System conducted the exercise inside the school.

Several Central students took part in the drill, with many playing the role of shooting victims, covering themselves with stage blood.

Only a few people at the school knew exactly what was planned in advance and responders had to react as if in real life, said Dr. Kimberly Lansing from Gundersen Health System in La Crosse.

“Teachers involved don’t know what’s happening, and neither do the police or fire or EMT people that are just part of the response team,” Lansing told reporters. “The only people that know what’s going to happen are the chiefs, and so everybody’s going to have to react, sort of, off the seat of their pants.”

The yearly exercise was arranged by students with the Wisconsin Academy for Rural Medicine. The drill took about an hour, on one floor of Central.