JAMESTOWN, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – Jamestown High School Freshmen will continue a tradition of being certified through Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) on Thursday.

For the past 8 years, Freshmen have undergone the training to learn how to respond and take care of themselves, their family and neighbors in the event of a disaster.

“This hands-on course has taught students about emergency preparedness, fire safety, medical triage, disaster medical, search and rescue, disaster psychology, and terrorism by professional emergency responders from Stutsman County,” states Assistant Emergency Manager Kim Franklin.

Emergency Manager Jerry Bergquist states that they have an emergency exercise planned this Thursday.

Bergquist says they’ve trained nearly 1,000 teens with the CERT training since they first started.

“These freshmen will participate in a disaster exercise where they will be acting as the responders during a simulated bleacher collapse scenario,” Franlkin reports. “This will give each of them the opportunity to utilize the skills that they have learned throughout this 6 week program. The event will be overseen by personnel from various local emergency response agencies and school staff.”

JHS Drama students will be performing as the injured victims in the scenario. Each of the Teen CERT students will also be presented with Certificates of Completion in a graduation ceremony.

The exercise is planned for 9:01 AM and 10:24 AM. Click here for photos and video from the 2017 CERT exercise at the Jamestown High School.