As most Warren County residents were nestled in bed during last week’s cold snap, more than a dozen firefighters, police and sheriff’s deputies were bundling up and hiking into the jet-black night in the woods of Vicksburg National Military Park.

The 4.5-mile overland search and rescue course zigzagged though hills, ravines and dense woods as 17 students sought their certification as rescuers and to join the Mid-Mississippi Strike Team, said Shane Garard, who helped coordinate the event locally.

“We’ll have 50 to 60 guys from Warren County on the team after this class,” Garrard said.

The class is designed to give emergency workers skills to find a lost or injured person.

Garrard was perhaps one of the most dedicated of the group shivering in the freezing wind. He had already completed the class and volunteered to lend a hand. By trade, he’s the training officer at Warren County E-911, and he serves the community as a volunteer fireman and EMT and is the county’s coordinator for search and rescue.

“You radio back and forth to them making sure they get from point to point,” he said.

Last week, he worked in the incident command unit for the class, recording times and GPS coordinates for the 17 students wandering through the woods looking for designated positions given to them only in latitude and longitude coordinates.

“It teaches you GPS and navigating your way around,” said Randy Rippy, the Vicksburg Fire Department’s search and rescue point of contact.

Almost everyone made it through the heavily wooded course.

“We pulled a team out because of a real life emergency. Someone had a rolled ankle,” Garrard said.

Having Vicksburg and Warren County people participate in the class is good for local and statewide response, said Warren County Emergency Manager John Elfer. Strike team members could potentially be sent to disaster areas to perform search operations, he said.

“I think it’s absolutely crucial that we have people trained that can respond in our local jurisdiction. I think it’s important that we have people trained that we can deploy to other areas,” Elfer said.

In November, the search and rescue skills were put to the test when Garrard, Rippy and Shane Miller found the body of a missing hunter at Natchez State Park.

Travis Todd, 35, had entered the wooded area Nov. 16 in an apparent plan to spend the afternoon exploring. He left without his cellphone but had made plans with his wife for later in the evening.

Family members said Todd might have been in a confused state because of two major electrical shocks he received in 2012 after touching a live wire while working for the City of Vidalia, La.

Adams County officials began searching for the man immediately but turned up nothing.

“They had been searching for three days,” Garrard said. “We got there and in three and a half hours found him.”

Last week’s class was the third of its kind at Vicksburg National Military Park, and local emergency responders are planning to take the classes to the next level.

“After this class, we’re going to start doing more hands-on training,” Garrard said.

Rippy said the next class could be Fundamentals of Search and Rescue, which includes grid searching and other advanced techniques.

“It’s like a policeman collecting evidence,” Rippy said.