AUBURN — Nursing student Vickie Cummings stood over Noelle and asked where she felt her contractions.

“In my back. My back is killing me,” Noelle said. “Please; I need something for the pain!”

Cummings helped Noelle breathe through a contraction. After the contraction passed, Cummings felt the patient’s stomach.

“I’m feeling the top of her uterus,” Cummings said. “I’m looking to see the position the baby’s in, looking to see if it’s breech.”

Nursing student Linda Frechette also felt to determine the baby’s position. The head was down and engaged, she concluded.

The two students were not in a hospital. They were in a Central Maine Community College classroom. Behind them, a room of dignitaries watched a mannequin in computerized labor, a mannequin newborn flail his arms and legs and a mannequin suffering a heart attack.

The college welcomed guests Wednesday to celebrate, and demonstrate, the formal opening of the Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation Nursing Simulation Center.

The center houses new, high-tech equipment to help nursing students learn. The $100,000 equipment was donated by the Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation.

There’s a birthing simulator, a newborn baby in a warmer used in delivery rooms, a ceiling-mounted patient lift, a computerized medication-dispensing cabinet and a defibrillator for a mannequin that has a lot of heart attacks.

The room had the feel of a hospital.

The mannequin in labor, Noelle, blinked her eyes. Through pre-programming, she answered questions.

“She actually does deliver a baby,” said instructor Kathy McManus. “The baby is on a rod and pushes through. It’s amazing.”

The mannequin is anatomically correct, allowing students to check on the dilation and watch the baby’s head crown. Above Noelle, monitors beeped and buzzed, showing the baby’s heart rate and contractions.

McManus quizzed students on what would they do if the baby’s heart rate fell. They said they’d do a vaginal exam to see where the umbilical cord was, “open up the IV to get more oxygen to the placenta,” and call the doctor.

“Good job,” McManus said. “Shall we go over and look at the baby?”

On the other side of the room, nursing students Ryan Dixon and Matt Peters were monitoring “Mrs. Gonzales.”

“She went into cardiac arrest,” Dixon said. The patient had no pulse, blood was not getting to the organs and the heart was beating irregularly.

Peters used the defibrillator to shock the mannequin’s heart into a regular beat, then Dixon administered CPR while instructor Linda Morin watched.

Monitors above the bed beeped and displayed the heart rate and blood pressure. Vital signs improved.

Dixon and Peters, both second-year students who plan to specialize in cardiac care, praised the high-tech equipment new to CMCC.

“It’s as close to real life as you can get,” Peters said.

“You can’t get real-life experience like this and make mistakes, because the patient dies,” Dixon said. “It’s really amazing to have this.”

Dan Corcoran, president and general manager of Anthem in Maine, said that in addition to providing health care coverage for 400,000 Mainers, the business has “a proud legacy of giving back,” donating $700,000 to 60 nonprofit agencies last year.

bwashuk@sunjournal.com