VIDEO: Search And Rescue Training

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – Columbus Firefighters are sharpening their skills this week.

They’re focusing on search and rescue.

So far in 2017, Columbus Fire and Rescue has worked two missing person cases, which shows just how often those search and rescue efforts play out.

Columbus Fire and Rescue are always on call and training keeps them ahead of the game and prepared for any kind of emergency.

“These map-reading skills and line search skills that we’re practicing today, we’ll use those in every discipline like our dive rescue, even those other areas of technical certification require those skills to be proficient in as well,” says Columbus Fire and Rescue Captain, Captain Wes Mims.

The search and rescue training is in real time, like an actual call would play out.

“Getting the information they need to start a search. Where the last, the person’s last known point was, going out doing the search, finding the victim, if they need medical attention, taking care of them medical wise, and get them back home safe,” says Columbus Fire and Rescue’s Overland Search and Rescue Instructor, Michael Miller.

The drill comes on the heels of an actual search and rescue, at Propst Park, after a child wandered away from a building across the street.

“Kids may go to playgrounds and things, so this is kind of based on that, based directly on that situation where we’ll come over here and kind of go through what we did last week, and where we might could improve, or areas that we did really good at,” says Mims.

Mims says skills are practiced every few months and there’s one thing always taken away from it.

“They take away a confidence is the main thing. It’s being able to go on scene and know that you know what you’re doing and be able to jump right in and start working on these, finding these people that may be in dire need.”

The Columbus team is normally the lead agency in all Lowndes County on search and rescue efforts, and even take them to other regions of Mississippi.

“We’ve been on the coast with Katrina. We’ve been to Louisville during the tornado in Louisville. Smithville, just wherever they call us, we go,” says Miller.