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，使用虚拟现实来模拟无法控制的火灾场景，并使用身临其境的、逼真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真实火灾场景中人类反应的生理和心理反应，主要区别在于受伤的风险要小得多。目前，在真实火灾场景中进行培训的成本非常高，需要投入大量资源并冒着极大的人身风险。在火场上受伤的代价非常高，扰乱了工作流程，并在多种方面对消防员的生活产生了负面影响。许多消防员由于无法控制的条件而无法在现实生活中进行训练，当他们接触到真实的东西时，他们会出现各种自然但不良反应。该提案的基本前提是，通过在身临其境的环境中进行培训，消防员将获得更好的装备，因为他们将学习如何管理现实生活中的压力源，并找到优化表现和幸福感的方法，使他们能够在工作中表现得更好。最终，这意味着拯救生命，减少受伤数量，减少创伤后应激损伤(PTSI)的发生率。这个项目的社会影响主要有三个方面：1)减少伤害和相关费用(即带薪假期、保险索赔、伤残赔偿、消防员和家人的收入损失)和负面影响(即生产力损失、抑郁和孤立、医疗保健系统费用)；2)减少消防员在工作中死亡的发生率、相关费用(即营业额和人寿保险索赔)；3)与平均受伤成本相比，通过降低培训成本，消防员的工作成功率更高(即，较少的培训伤害，不需要训练环境中的紧急和待命医疗队，每次训练环境被烧毁时不需要重建训练环境的成本，在许多情况下，消防员接受培训，而不是接受任何实际生活中的培训)。

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).