American Red Cross Lifeguard VR Training
Multi-Scenario Customized Simulation in Virtual Environment to Save Lives
In the USA, more children ages 1–4 die from drowning than any other cause of death. For children ages 5–14, drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury death after motor vehicle crashes*. To address this immense challenge, the American Red Cross focuses its efforts on providing knowledge and skills to help prevent, recognize, and respond to aquatic emergencies.
Lifeguard VR project solves the challenge of improving the effectiveness of lifeguard and water safety training and certification for the over 300,000 lifeguards employed across 12,000 training centres in the United States. The current program certifies thousands annually but doesn’t provide the variability and repetition of simulation to ensure lifeguards are able to rapidly identify and respond to dangerous drowning incidents. Providing additional opportunities to reinforce core concepts, and environmental variability hones critical skills and ensures better preparedness and safety for the nation’s swimmers. When developing this project, Lucid Reality Labs kept these challenges top of mind, developing a solution to support both instructor-led and self-driven training and skills assessments – all built upon a platform designed for maximum scalability. High-quality visual fidelity and modeling to accurately simulate the variability of light, movement, and distortions created by unique water environments was a core requirement, along with ease of use and accessibility across headset options. Finally, the platform supports on-demand access to learner dashboards, custom assignments, progress, and performance analytics to support managing thousands of learners and instructors.
High-Fidelity Environment with Hyper-Realistic Avatars and Scientific Approach to Underwater Locomotion
The digitally recreated collection of real-world water environments with indoor and outdoor options reflects the real-life experience with lights, shadows, and sounds.
The hyper-realistic avatars were developed using the motion capture system with perfect mapping of the human body, its movements, and behavior patterns while.
The Scalability, Multi-Product, and Multi-Player Application of the Project
The VR solution introduces a transformative approach to lifeguard training, ensuring scalability in a field where access to swimming pools and coaches is often limited. By leveraging this technology, hundreds and even thousands of trainees can now be trained simultaneously.
Collaborating closely with Red Cross aquatic experts, the training scenarios have been meticulously designed to offer a science-backed, interactive solution that addresses a critical gap in the lifeguarding industry. This includes honing cognitive skills like surveillance and visual scanning for timely identification of drowning individuals.
In a profession where seconds count, a lifeguard’s swift recognition and response can be the ultimate factor between life and death. VR training empowers lifeguards to practice these critical skills in a diverse range of immersive environments, replicating real-life scenarios. By seamlessly integrating with traditional learning methods, Lifeguard VR significantly enhances surveillance and recognition abilities, making it an engaging and easily accessible training tool.
Content Management System to Determine Individual Goals
The tailored content management system empowers trainees with a personalized experience, ensuring that they receive training aligned with their skill level. This individualized approach not only enhances the learning experience but also makes this solution efficient and effective for each specific trainee. The performance scores not only offer a metric for improvement but also foster healthy competition, enhancing engagement, especially among the dynamic young lifeguard demographic.
Unified Data Dashboard for Individual Result & Progress Tracking
Designing for Scale to Train and Certify 300,000 American Red Cross Lifeguards
The Lifeguard VR program, now an integral part of the official American Red Cross water safety program, has achieved nationwide implementation with ~85 active organisations, 12,000 training centres and 300,000 active lifeguards trained and certified annually. This integration, building on a century of lifesaving training since 1914, marks a significant advancement with the incorporation of VR technology since 2023.