VR training for emergency services personnel

Last week we described some of the uses of Virtual Reality training in the armed forces and this week we fill some more gaps by describing how it is also being used to train staff working in the emergency services on both sides of the pond.

The below video shows the Swiss police using VR training to practice dealing with a hostage-taking situation.

The New York Police Department is just one of many institutions in the USA that have been using VR to train their staff in how to deal with a variety of situations. In this video, groups of police personnel learn how to coordinate their movements and communicate effectively in the context of an active shooter scenario.

It has also been embraced by firefighting departments in the USA since 2020.

If you watched the above video you’ll have heard the Executive Director of the North American Fire Training Directors effectively say that it is a good way to recruit new firefighters i.e. when used as a marketing tool, but is of limited use in preparing people for fighting a real fire. Two weeks ago I met a firefighter who works at a nuclear power station in France who echoed these sentiments precisely. He said that as of this year (2022) all their training is in Virtual Reality and that the opinion of him and most of his colleagues is that while it is useful to learn the layout of other nuclear power stations in the local area, it is completely useless when it comes to preparing people to fight fires under real life conditions. Specifically he mentioned that the absence of stifling heat, not to mention suffocating noxious fumes, makes the VR fire fighting training more or less useless for preparing a raw recruit for the real thing.

Here at Brain Man VR we believe it is extremely important not to overstate the usefulness of virtual reality training. It is suitable for many situations but certainly not all. And in the case of learning to fight fires, it is ridiculous to suggests that visual and auditory information alone is sufficient to recreate the experience of a real life fire.

Another clear and obvious flaw in current approaches to fire fighter training - immediately apparent when watching the above video - is that the hose remains limp while the person “fights the fire.” If there is one thing I remember clearly when I got the chance to point a fire hose powered by a fire engine at a real fire when I was ten years old is that the forces passing through the hose were incredibly powerful.

So the conclusion of this blog is that if your VR simulation lacks a huge amount of important sensory information, then it is simply not fit for purpose and you should stick to training up your staff the old fashioned way!