Elite Palm Beach Fire-Rescue team takes part in statewide rescue competition
With his vision obscured, firefighter Lex May navigated quickly through a narrow tube.
Also with his sight blocked, firefighter Tom Ardito launched himself through a small opening in a wall.
The trio were among 10 Palm Beach Fire-Rescue personnel who participated in the Rapid Intervention Team competition on May 1 at Palm Beach State College near Lake Worth Beach.
Two teams from Palm Beach took part in the Palm Beach State Invitational competition: Team 1 of Lts. Arcila and Stephen Montoya with firefighters Ardito, Austin Bohn and May; and Team 2 of Lts. Michael Bennett and Daniel DiRocco with firefighters Ryan Allen, Bruce Martin and Alex Park.
The teams completed a grueling course with challenges that included breaking through a reinforced door, navigating tight spaces and rescuing a mock victim while in blackout conditions.
Town of Palm Beach Fire-Rescue Rapid Intervention team members, firefighter Lex May, from right, Lt. Walter Arcila, firefighter Austin Bohn, firefighter Thomas Ardito, and Lt. Stephen Montoya, discuss their strategy for the RIT competition at Palm Beach State College on May 1.
This was the second RIT competition for Palm Beach, which formed its first Rapid Intervention Team within the past year. Team members go through grueling training to be part of the team, said Assistant Fire Chief Joe Sekula, Fire-Rescue spokesman.
While Palm Beach's pair of teams did well, they did not advance past the competition's first day, he said.
While wearing a blackout mask that totally impedes his vision, a member of the Palm Beach Fire-Rescue Rapid Intervention Team (RIT) throws his body through a tiny window during the competition.
"However, with just two competitions under their belt, they have already made a name for themselves and they are already looking forward to the next competition in Orlando in January," Sekula said. "They will take everything that they learned here and incorporate that into their training."
The training is very specialized and results in an "elite" fire-rescue unit, he said.
Sparks fly as Fire-Rescue Lt. Walter Arcila cuts through rebar.
"That's very labor-intensive as you can imagine," Sekula said. "We are super proud of them!"
Palm Beach County Fire Rescue Team 1 took first place, with Broward Sheriff's Office Fire Rescue Team 2 coming in second, according to the rankings released by Palm Beach State College. In third place was Largo Fire Rescue.
Town of Palm Beach firefighter Lex May takes a knee before competing.
The RIT competition was part of the larger Palm Beach State Invitational that took place throughout the weekend at Palm Beach State College's main campus near Lake Worth Beach. Teams also competed in vehicle rescue, emergency medical services and rope rescues.
Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at kwebb@pbdailynews.com. Subscribe today to support our journalism.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach Fire-Rescue Rapid Intervention Team takes on competition
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
a day ago
- New York Times
Omaha basketball player Deng Mayar dies in drowning incident at age 22
Omaha forward Deng Mayar died in a drowning incident in Utah, the school confirmed Sunday. Mayar was 22. While swimming at Blackridge Reservoir in Herriman, Utah, Mayar and a friend, Sa Mafutaga, both began to struggle to stay afloat, according to the Herriman Police Department. Mafutaga made it to shore but reentered the water when he saw Mayar struggling. Bystanders later entered the water to help Mafutaga, who was treated at the scene and transported to a hospital, where he is expected to recover, according to Herriman Police. Advertisement Herriman Police said it responded to a call at 5:40 p.m. local time about two individuals in distress in the reservoir. Rescue crews searched for hours for Mayar's body before the police's submersible robot located him at 10:40 p.m. Divers recovered Mayar at 11 p.m. and pronounced him dead at the scene, per police. Authorities said Mayar went underwater 35 yards from the reservoir's shore, and his family was present during the rescue crews' search. Herriman is a suburb of Salt Lake City, Mayar's hometown. The 6-foot-8 forward transferred to Omaha this offseason after spending two years at North Dakota. 'Our entire program is devastated to learn of Deng's passing,' Omaha coach Chris Crutchfield said in a statement. 'After competing against him for two years, we were elated to add him to our team, and he made tremendous progress this summer. Deng was a joy to be around and made our culture better. We will miss him greatly.' The University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha Athletics and our program mourn the tragic passing of Deng Mayar. He was 22 years old. Full statement at — Omaha Men's Basketball (@OmahaMBB) August 17, 2025 Mayar averaged 5.7 points and 3.9 rebounds in 42 games with North Dakota and helped the Fighting Hawks reach the Summit League tournament semifinals last season. North Dakota coach Paul Sather said in a statement that the Fighting Hawks' 'hearts are broken' after learning of Mayar's death. 'He was a wonderful person with a heart the size of a gym,' Sather said. 'Our thoughts are with his parents and family, along with all his teammates from UND and UNO. As competitive as he was on the court, he had a gentle nature and kind soul off the court. Deng will be greatly missed by all of those that knew and loved him.' Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
Associated Press
4 days ago
- Associated Press
Body of Chinese climber killed during K2 summit descent retrieved by rescue team
GILGIT, Pakistan (AP) — A rescue team from Pakistan and Nepal has retrieved the body of a Chinese climber who was killed on K2, the world's second-highest peak in northern Pakistan, a regional government spokesman said Saturday. Faizullah Faraq, spokesman for the Gilgit-Baltistan government, said the body of Guan Jing was airlifted by an army helicopter from K2's base camp after a team of mountaineers brought it down. Jing died Tuesday after being struck by falling rocks during her descent, a day after she had reached the summit with a group of fellow climbers. Faraq said her body was taken to a hospital in Skardu city and would be sent to Islamabad after coordination with her family and Chinese officials Karrar Haidri, vice president of the Pakistan Alpine Club, said the body was retrieved after days-long efforts, during which one of the rescuers was injured and airlifted by a helicopter. K2, which rises 8,611 meters (28,251 feet) above sea level, is considered one of the world's most difficult and dangerous peaks to climb. Jing's death comes more than two weeks after German mountaineer and Olympic gold medalist Laura Dahlmeier died while attempting another peak in the region.
Fox News
10-08-2025
- Fox News
First RIT women's track runner comes forward about sharing team and locker room with viral trans athlete
EXCLUSIVE: Caroline Hill turned down multiple Division I women's track and field scholarships to compete for Division III Rochester Institute of Technology. Her talents allowed her to break the program record in the 200-meter and 300-meter early in her collegiate career. But then she had to watch both records fall to transgender teammate Sadie Schreiner, all while feeling "uncomfortable" sharing a locker room with her trans teammate for the next two years. Then, even after Schreiner was ruled ineligible to compete when the NCAA changed its transgender policy on Feb. 6, Hill alleges Schreiner continued to use the women's locker room and train with the team for another month. RIT has declined to comment on Hill's allegations. Now, Hill is the first of Schreiner's former RIT teammates to speak out about the experience. Hill previously joined Riley Gaines' lawsuit vs. the NCAA in 2023 – Schreiner's first official year on her team – as an anonymous plaintiff. But now, she has come forward to put her name down. Hill claims she and her teammates were introduced to Schreiner as their future teammate in 2022. Schreiner did not officially begin to compete until 2023. "He was practicing with us a little bit during the preseason," Hill said of the situation in 2022. Fox News Digital was unable to verify why Schreiner did not officially compete for RIT in 2022. When Schreiner began competing the following year, Hill claims the two of them were paired up as "workout buddies" by their coaches. "We were sort of expected to be training buddies because we're both 'women' on the women's team running the same events," Hill said. "Personally, I saw it as 'This is not fair. This is definitively unfair'… the expectation was that we are equals, being perceived as equals by the coach. That was what I had a harder time with." Hill even made it a point to protest the situation to her coach and administrators, but to no avail. Hill even alleges that Jacqueline Nicholson, RIT executive director of intercollegiate athletics, told her and the other women on the team that Schreiner had "less testosterone" than some of them. "I had a couple conversations with her. She was very firm in that 'This is what the NCAA is enforcing. We're supporting it,'" Hill said. "We even had a meeting with the women on the team where she addressed us and said, 'We support this athlete competing on the team. Some of you women have more testosterone than he does,' making it seem like it was totally fair and just as if we had a problem with it, that was not OK. It was very, very harsh." Hill said her conversation with her sprint coach was futile as well. "I was very vulnerable expressing my feelings about the male athlete competing and training with us. And he was not very empathetic," Hill said. "He sort of tried to diminish my thoughts, and it was a lot of deflection. It's like, 'Well, we shouldn't be focusing on that.'" Hill also claims that other women on the team were supportive of competing with Schreiner. "A lot of my teammates, um, were very supportive of this athlete competing and training with us," Hill said. In Schreiner's second year on the team in 2024, the trans athlete broke Hill's program record in the 300-meter, clearing Hill's previous record, which she set her sophomore year in 2022, by 1.42 seconds. In early 2025, Schreiner broke the program record in the 200-meter with a 24.46, besting Hill's best time of 25.82, which she set that same year. She ranks just behind Schreiner for second-best in program history. While Hill had to watch Schreiner break her collegiate records on the track, an even more personal dilemma awaited her in the locker room. "I remember one day, I think I was changing, and all of a sudden this athlete is just in the locker room, and being very just shocked and kind of mortified obviously because it's uncomfortable to have a male in the locker room. And so actually his locker was right next to mine," Hill said. "It's kind of a social area, but he really didn't talk to anyone." Hill also said Schreiner never changed in the women's locker room. Still, Hill said she actively tried to avoid changing in front of Schreiner, but that wasn't always an option. "If he was like standing there doing something or whatever, I would kind of wait for him to be somewhere else before I changed," Hill said. "Or there were times where I did, but I would just change as quickly as I could and, you know, I was able to just like suck it up, I guess. Not that I should have had to do that." Hill spent the two years of her collegiate career sharing those spaces and competitions with Schreiner. After President Donald Trump signed the "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" executive order on Feb. 5, which aimed to put an end to situations like the one at RIT, the NCAA complied the next day, changing its policy to only allow biological females to compete as women. Hill said the coaches never officially informed the female athletes that Schreiner wouldn't be competing with them anymore. RIT provided a statement to Fox News Digital on Feb. 12 that read, "We continue to follow the NCAA participation policy for transgender student-athletes following the Trump administration's executive order. Sadie is not participating in the next meet." However, Hill alleged that this didn't mean the end of seeing Schreiner in the locker room or at practice. "He was still changing with us and all that. I was sort of confused," Hill said. "Utilizing our coaches, our facilities, our resources during a practice times even though the rules had been changed. So it didn't end with the rule change. He kept training with us. Not that we were training buddies, but he was always there at the same time as I was… I would say a month after [the rule change]." Schreiner's attorney, Susie Cirilli of Cirilli LLC, told Fox News Digital, "We are not responding at this time," in response to a request for comment on Hill's statements. Eventually, Schreiner made an effort to compete in non-NCAA sanctioned events. Schreiner competed at the USA Track & Field Open Masters Championships on March 1 in New York. There, Schreiner took first place in the women's 400-meter dash and 200-meter dash. Weeks after that, Schreiner posted an Instagram video claiming to have likely competed in Schreiner's last organized track meet in the U.S. after a USATF event in Maine. "I very likely just ran what will be my last meet in the United States," Schreiner said, later adding, "I will find a way to keep competing, but I doubt that will be in the United States." Schreiner said USATF changed its policy on transgender eligibility from the one used by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which allows biological males to compete in the women's category, to the one used by World Athletics, which bans any athlete who has undergone male puberty from competing as a woman. The USATF's official transgender eligibility policy does now reference the World Athletics guidelines on its official webpage. It previously referenced the IOC's policy, as seen in an archive via Wayback Machine. Then in July, Schreiner filed a lawsuit against Princeton University after the school allegedly excluded the athlete from a May 3 women's race. Schreiner's lawsuit claimed the athlete attempted to participate in the women's 200-meter sprint at the Larry Ellis Invitational as one of the 141 participants unattached to a university or club. The suit alleges officials told Schreiner the athlete could not participate 15 minutes before the race began. "The actions of the two Princeton officials were in blatant and willful disregard of Sadie's rights based on Sadie's rights as a transgender woman under controlling New Jersey law, thereby causing Sadie Schreiner to foreseeable emotional and physical harm," the lawsuit argued. Cirilli provided an exclusive statement to Fox News Digital about Schreiner's lawsuit against Princeton. "The action of the two Princeton officials were in blatant and willful disregard of Sadie's rights as a transgender woman under controlling New Jersey Law," the statement read. "The actions of the defendants were utterly intolerable in a civilized community and go beyond the possible bounds of decency." Meanwhile, Hill, having graduated from RIT with a degree in graphic design, is pressing ahead as a now-public member of the Gaines vs. NCAA lawsuit. Hill said fear of retaliation from fellow students at the school and elsewhere prevented her from speaking out against the situation earlier. But now, as the culture in America has shifted, Hill is proudly putting her name out there as an advocate to protect women's sports. "I was definitely a little worried being on campus, being on my team, um, with administration that felt strongly, I get that they were against the lawsuit… I was a little worried about my own safety and that things might escalate in a way that I couldn't foresee," Hill said. "I feel like it's worthwhile to come forward [now] just because I have the ability to use what has happened to me as a way to show that harm is being done to women, to female athletes… it is scary to put yourself out there because I'm sure there's a lot of girls out there that feel like they can't and don't have a voice. "The NCAA has definitely made it so that they, a lot of women and girls don't feel like they can speak out, so I want to do it." Hill is calling for RIT to apologize to her and reinstate her as the program record-holder for the 200- and 300-meter.
