Photo by Sam Yu Chelsea Smith provides first aid to Paul Smith during an exercise on Friday afternoon at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg. Paul Smith and other members of a wilderness first response class played the victims of a bear attack as the rest of the class came upon the scene.

Instead, a grizzly bear invaded the campsite, destroying everything in its path and throwing Rodriguez against a tree, leaving her with head trauma and severe cuts from her waist up.

Back at ranger headquarters, incident commander Kieran Kelly received a call informing him of a bear attack. He rounded up his team of eight first responders and set out for the scene.

Trekking through the snow, Kelly stopped his team just before they reach the scene.

"Think of what could be out there, the type of injuries you might see," he said. "Play through your mind of what possible injuries we could see."

As they approached, Rodriguez's friend Janeé Romesberg ran from the woods, screaming for help and yelling about the large bear that had attacked her camp.

Rodriguez lay motionless beside a tree.

Fortunately for Romesberg and Rodriguez, they were not actually in the Alaskan wilderness, but on the campus of Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg. They have been participating in the wilderness first response class for the past week and were portraying the victims in the course's final live simulation.

Instructor Tara Bossert of Wilderness Medical Associates led the 14 students.

Rodriguez, a Mount alumna, is a nurse at Frederick Memorial Hospital who took the course because it combines her two passions, health care and the outdoors.

"I thought it would be an interesting expansion on my medical knowledge," she said.

Kieran Kelly is a park ranger at Manassas National Battlefield Park in Virginia. He participated the course to help prepare for the sorts of situations he might encounter.

Mount freshman Chelsea Smith is a member of CRUX — Challenging Recreation, Unleashing Experience — an outdoor adventures program at the Mount. She took the course to become a program leader.

"I love it," she said. "It's been a really big eye-opener to all of the things I wasn't aware of in the real world. Now I'm trained, now I can save someone's life."

The course taught students what to do — including CPR, injury diagnosis and using splints to stabilize broken bones — during emergencies in severe environments.

Smith said Bossert has kept the class — which runs from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. with a one-hour lunch break— exciting.

"She's showing us as she's teaching us as well," Smith said.

The course is offered once a year at the Mount, typically in the winter.