GREEN RIVER — One of the Ciner mine rescue teams brought home the first-place hardware at a competition in Ruidoso, New Mexico this week, training and competing against other teams across the country.

Team members said the scenarios in the competition were challenging.  The entire competition was held in the dark to simulate conditions in a mine. 

Team members included Paul Larsen, Zach Boylen, Kevin Mattinson, Zach Cary, Jeiremy Gomez, Ashley Osborne and Kenderick Wilson. The trainers were Chris Barker and Dennie Hughes.

The Ciner team finished first in the Team Tech competition. Team Tech is the part of the competition where the rescuers must “debug” a gas meter and breathing apparatus.

The judges will intentionally cause a problem and the rescuers must systematically troubleshoot the problem and repair it.  There is a time limit that is difficult to meet.

Mine rescue competitions are an essential part of the overall training, for rescue teams, to simulate different scenarios that could happen in a mine and to perform under stressful conditions. 

Zach Boylen and Kevin Mattinson represented Ciner, in the Team Tech competition, and took home the first place trophies.