Enriching firefighter training through the development of a novel virtual reality training simulation for personalized, precision skill and resilience training

这是一个高度创新的项目，利用虚拟现实技术来模拟不受控制的火灾场景，并通过身临其境的体验式学习来改善消防员的培训。这项技术将引发类似于人类对真实火灾场景的生理和心理反应，主要区别在于受伤的风险要小得多。目前，在真实的火灾场景中进行训练的成本非常高，需要大量的资源和巨大的个人风险。火灾现场的伤害代价高昂，破坏工作流程，并以多种方式对消防员的生活产生负面影响。由于无法控制的条件，许多消防员无法在现实生活中训练，当他们接触到真实的情况时，他们会遭受各种自然但不良的反应。该提案的基本前提是，消防员将通过在沉浸式环境中的培训，更好地装备自己，因为他们将学会管理现实生活中的压力源，并找到优化表现和福祉的方法，使他们能够更好地完成工作。最终，这意味着挽救生命，减少受伤数量，减少创伤后应激性损伤（PTSI）的发生率。这个项目的社会影响基本上有三个方面：1)减少伤害和相关成本（即带薪休假、保险索赔、残疾赔偿、消防员及其家庭的收入损失）和负面影响（即生产力损失、抑郁和孤立、医疗系统成本）；2)减少消防员在工作中死亡的发生率、相关费用（即人员流动和人寿保险索赔）；3)与受伤的平均成本相比，通过更低的培训成本提高了消防员的工作成功率（即，更少的训练伤害，在训练环境中不需要应急和备用医疗团队，每次被烧毁时都不需要重建训练环境，并且在许多情况下，消防员接受培训而不是根本不接受实际训练）。

A highly innovative project using virtual reality to simulate uncontrolled fire scenarios and improve training for firefighters using immersive life-like, experiential learning. This technology would elicit physiological and psychological responses similar to the human reactions of a real fire scenario with the major difference being that there is much less risk of injury. Currently, the cost of training in real fire scenarios is extremely high requiring significant resources at great personal risk. Injuries on the fire ground are very costly, disruptive to workflow, and negatively impacts fire fighters lives in multiple ways. Many fire fighters who are unable to train in real-life scenarios, due to the uncontrollable conditions, suffer from a variety of natural but adverse reactions when they are exposed to the real thing. The fundamental premise of the proposal is that firefighters will be better equipped through training in an immersive environment as they will learn to manage the stressors in real-life and find ways to optimize performance and well-being, enabling them to perform better at their jobs.Ultimately, this means saved lives, reduced number of injuries, and less incidences of Post-Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI). The social impact of this project is essentially three fold: 1) reduced injury and the associated costs (i.e. paid leave, insurance claims, disability payments, income loss for the firefighter and family) and negative impacts (i.e. loss of productivity, depression and isolation, healthcare system costs); 2) reduced incidence of death on the job for firefighters, the associated costs (i.e. turnover and life insurance claims); and 3) increased success of firefighters on the job through lower training costs compared to the average cost of injury (i.e. less training injuries, no need for emergency and stand-by medical team in training environments, no cost of rebuilding training environment each time it is burned down, and in many cases fire fighters receive training rather than receiving no real-life training at all).