"They shot all of us across our backs," a teacher said. "It hurt so bad."

Patrick Semansky / AP file Police officers participate in an active shooter drill in a classroom in Salisbury, Maryland, in 2013.

Teachers at an elementary school in Indiana were left with bruises, welts, and in some cases bloody and broken skin during an active shooter drill in January where they were shot multiple times with plastic pellets.

The incident came to light when Gail Zeheralis, a member of the Indiana State Teachers Association (ISTA), testified about it before state lawmakers on Wednesday, while urging them to amend a school safety bill to prohibit the firing of projectiles during active shooter drills. In January, 30 teachers at the Meadowlawn Elementary School in Monticello participated in an active shooter drill conducted by the White County Sheriff's Department, according to the ISTA. As part of the drill, four teachers at a time were taken into a small room, told to turn around and crouch down, and then rapidly shot in the back three or four times with plastic pellets from an airsoft gun, the ISTA said. In tweets describing the incident on Thursday, the ISTA said the teachers were shot "execution style" with projectiles.

During active shooter drill, four teachers at a time were taken into a room, told to crouch down and were shot execution style with some sort of projectiles - resulting in injuries to the extent that welts appeared, and blood was drawn.

The teachers were instructed not to tell the others what had happened inside the room, and the sheriff's department did not warn any of the participants about what was going to happen, according to the ISTA. Other teachers waiting outside the room could hear screaming from inside, before they were brought into the room and shot at. Many of the teachers experienced soreness, bruising, and welts, while some experienced bleeding and broken skin, an ISTA spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. Not all the teachers were injured. One teacher who was shot at four times told the Indianapolis Star that the sheriff's officials conducting the drill told the teachers, "This is what happens if you cower and do nothing." "They shot all of us across our backs," the teacher, who did not wish to be identified, told the newspaper. "It hurt so bad." The school's Facebook page posted a photo on Jan. 4, thanking the White County Sheriff's Department for training its staff members. "Safety is priority at ML!" the post said.