ESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. (WLOX) — On Thursday, 41 members of the William Carey men’s track team were traveling to the SSAC Championship in Gainesville, Fla., when their charter bus broke down on I-10 in Escambia County, Fla.
According to a Thursday post on the Escambia County Public Schools (ECPS) Facebook page, the team was halted in a construction area. With the bus’s air conditioning no longer working, the college students were left in Florida’s humid 75-degree heat with no escape from the sun.
The post said the team was advised that on-scene repairs would take a long time.
That is when Lt. Rafael D. Streeter of the Florida Highway Patrol and bus driver Rhonda “Miss Red” Smith of ECPS transportation stepped in to lend a helping hand.
The post said Lt. Streeter called his dispatch center and asked it to reach out to ECPS to request that a bus be dispatched to the scene to give the students an air-conditioned place to stay while their bus was fixed.
And ECPS did just that. According to the post, Smith drove Bus No. 24-23 to the scene and assisted the stranded team, providing them a much-needed place to cool off.
Once repairs were made to the charter bus, the students continued east to Gainesville, ready to compete at their meet.
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