PARIS – At the wooded edge of a wide field behind a line of well-kept homes, an 18-year-old woman was shot in the chest and killed Thursday afternoon by a man out hunting.

Megan Ripley was shot about 4 p.m. and was pronounced dead at Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway just after 5 p.m., a hospital spokeswoman said.

The field where Ripley was shot lies along Christian Ridge Road off Route 117, and it is believed she lived in a nearby red farmhouse with a horse pen in the backyard.

“They were unable to revive her at the scene,” Paris police Chief David Verrier said.

A team of medics, one pumping continuously on Ripley’s chest, carried her out of the field to a waiting ambulance.

The accident was reported on the property of Benjamin Labonte, who has owned that land for just more than a year. He purchased the parcel from Troy Ripley, also of Paris.

The shooting remained under investigation by the Maine Warden Service on Thursday night, and few details were being released. It was the state’s first fatal hunting accident since 2004, Warden Service spokesman Mark Latti said.

On Thursday afternoon, investigators began questioning the hunter, who was wearing an orange vest. At times, he held his hands to his mouth, his expression strained and seemingly frightened.

“I am never going to hunt again,” he said, moments before game wardens pulled him aside to ask him questions. “You try to do everything right,” he said, his voice trailing off. “I just hope she is alive.”

Officials did not release his name, but were calling him “Mr. Bean.” It is believed he, too, lives on Christian Ridge Road and had been hunting alone, police said.

Latti said more details would be released today during a Warden Service news conference.

The hunter did not know Ripley, said Verrier, the Paris police chief.

It was unclear what Ripley was doing when she was shot, but a man directing traffic at the scene said she was not wearing the kind of blaze-orange vest meant to make a person more visible to hunters.

Deer hunting for those using muzzle-loading weapons is open in the area until Saturday, said Warden Service Deputy Chief Gregg Sanborn, who briefed news media at the scene Thursday.

Muzzle-loading has ended already in some parts of Maine, but is extended in other wildlife districts including the one where Ripley was shot. Statewide, the deer-hunting season ends Saturday, Sanborn said.

The accident scene was secured Thursday night, with officials remaining there overnight to ensure no one tampered with the site.

From the road, bright lights could be seen illuminating a patch of woods at the field’s end, about 400 yards away.

Two assistant district attorneys, Joseph O’Connor and Richard Beauchesne, arrived briefly at the scene, joining state police, local police, game wardens, fire department officials, medics and even a wrecker crew that had to pull out two ambulances stuck in mud in the middle of the field. O’Connor said by phone later that if any charges resulted from the shooting, they would come from the state Attorney General’s Office. He also said he didn’t know the hunter’s name.

Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School Principal Ted Moccia said school officials would be meeting at 6:30 a.m. today with the school’s crisis response team and staff members to prepare for any emotional fallout from the incident.

It wasn’t clear Thursday night if Ripley had attended OHCHS.

Moccia said he had not been given the student’s name officially and wasn’t prepared to make any statement about her.

“At this point in time, all I can say is our hearts go out to this family,” Moccia said.

The shooting death would “take a toll on every hunter that hears about it,” said Sam Giles, the lead hunting safety instructor for the Norway-Paris Fish and Game Club.

The club operates a shooting range about a mile from the scene of the tragedy but the hunter involved is not believed to be a member of the club, Giles said.

“There is no accounting for a tragedy like this,” Giles said. “It doesn’t seem possible that anybody could mistake a person for a deer, but we obviously know that has happened repeatedly.”

He and many in the club personally know members of the Ripley family, Giles added.

“We will try to do everything we possibly can,” Giles said. “It’s going to be a shock for a lot of people in this area.”

Sun Journal editors Judy Meyer, Doug Fletcher and Scott Thistle contributed to this report.