Under the arms of two brave friends, state deputy sheriff trainee Scott Kawich slowly walked across the sodden HUB-Robeson Center lawn yesterday, cooling off. His bloodshot eyes were as red as the rest of his face and chest, which resembled a 12-hour sunburn.

Kawich had just been pepper sprayed as a part of the deputy sheriff training program yesterday afternoon on the HUB lawn.

After opening his eyes, Kawich screamed in pain.

Minutes later, Kawich sat down in the White Building -- his face inches away from a fan, to chill the scorch he felt.

"He looks like Rambo First Blood," said Aaron Baker, deputy sheriff.

Baker, a recent Penn State graduate in administration of justice, was fortunate enough not to have been sprayed yesterday.

"We have our OC training today. Basically, that means they get pepper sprayed," said Jeff Helwig, primary instructor of the deputy sheriff training program. "We do this four times a year. They all passed."

Helwig summed up this particular portion of the training.

"Part of the training, they got sprayed and then had to call for help," Helwig said. "Then they had to fight by striking a body shield, then take a person down and handcuff them while their face is burning."

The purpose of the exercise is to dose the officers-to-be with some empathy. The pain of the pepper spray was so intense, many of the "victims" ran around after ripping off their shirts trying to soothe the burn.

"The pain is so great, they don't care," Helwig said.

Deputy Joe Gizzi from Bucks County paced around the lawn with his colleagues, cooling off in the humid, but cool, air.

"This is it. The worst is over," Gizzi said. "We've been here since Sept. 9. Only two weeks and one day left."

Before going through "hell," as he described it, Gizzi had yet to see the pepper spray portion of the training. Supervising officers having already gone through the program were laughing while watching the painful, yet comical display.

"We have an idea of what they are through after getting sprayed," Helwig said. "Everybody reacts differently."