When Mark Fidrych heard an emergency call come across the scanner for swimmers in distress along a private Atlantic Avenue beach on Wednesday evening, he and his team of lifeguards sprang into action.
Fidrych, a lifeguard captain at Westerly Town Beach who was helping set up for Tunes on the Dunes, grabbed a pair of binoculars and saw three distressed swimmers about half a mile east, struggling to swim with strong riptides that were pulling them farther from shore.
Without hesitation, he signaled to lifeguards Gabriella Celico, Erika Rohdin, Lea Kopperman and Jack Benavides, and the group grabbed a torpedo buoy and reel — a flotation device attached to a long line — before sprinting the half mile to provide assistance.