{"id":205965,"date":"2026-03-25T20:47:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T20:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/205965\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T20:47:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T20:47:17","slug":"jacksonville-firefighters-mourn-23-year-old-rescue-engineer-killed-in-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/205965\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacksonville firefighters mourn 23-year-old rescue engineer killed in crash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rescue Engineer Colton Tibbetts, a Jacksonville firefighter, died in a tragic vehicle crash at 23.<\/p>\n<p>JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department (JFRD) announced Wednesday the death of Rescue Engineer Colton R. Tibbetts, 23, who according to the Jacksonville Firefighters Death Benefit Fund, died in a single-vehicle crash in the early morning hours of March 25, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Tibbetts was hired July 8, 2022, as part of Recruit Class 322 and was promoted to rescue engineer on Nov. 1, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>He was the son of recently retired Lt. Brian Tibbetts and Jody Tibbetts and came from a family of firefighters.<\/p>\n<p>A photo shared by the department shows Tibbetts with his parents and brother on Oct. 6, 2022, the night he graduated from recruit training.<\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"photo__main\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/e8931dd5-6f00-4d27-88c2-e00543dc0950_1140x641.jpg\"  alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Officials asked the community to keep Tibbetts\u2019 family, friends and co-workers in their thoughts and prayers as they cope with the sudden loss. Funeral arrangements will be announced once finalized.<\/p>\n<p>JFRD issued a statement saying, &#8220;We ask that you keep the Tibbetts family, his crew, and all members of JFRD in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rescue Engineer Colton Tibbetts, a Jacksonville firefighter, died in a tragic vehicle crash at 23. JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-205965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}