Universidad de Barcelona

How the University of Barcelona trains disaster response in VR

VR-RESCUE · Disaster response training

The context

Training for the disaster before the disaster arrives

VR-RESCUE is immersive emergency training built with virtual reality, created by the University of Barcelona together with MetaMedicsVR. It trains future doctors, nurses, health professionals and technical staff to manage disasters — and it lands in a country where that need has become painfully concrete, with DANA storms and flooding hitting Spain more and more often.

The challenge

You can't safely rehearse a flood

Traditional disaster-management training runs into three walls:

Accessibility

Real flood simulations are dangerous and expensive to stage.

Realism

Classroom exercises simply cannot capture the chaos of a real emergency.

Urgency

Climate events like the DANA storms are happening more often — the need is immediate.

What we built

Realistic flood scenarios, in a place where it's safe to fail

VR-RESCUE recreates realistic flood scenarios as immersive VR training. It covers both sides of a disaster — the preparation before it hits and the response after — including evacuation procedures, triage and emergency care, all in a safe environment a student can step into again and again.

The point is to build preparedness and response capacity before a real crisis, when there is no room to practise and every decision counts.

The scenarios

Step into the disaster, scenario by scenario

Evacuation procedures, triage and emergency care, in a safe environment where every decision can be repeated as many times as needed.

Casualty classification

Casualty care

Indoor rescue

Multiple casualties

The flood scene

Decision-making

Virtual Reality gives us a powerful tool to train our students and staff in emergency management, enhancing their preparedness and response capacity in critical situations.

Dr. Jose Antonio Sarria Guerrero Professor, University of Barcelona

Why it matters

Preparedness you can build before it's needed

Disaster response is exactly the kind of skill you cannot afford to learn on the day. By letting students and staff rehearse the chaos in advance — safely, realistically, as often as they need — VR-RESCUE turns disaster preparedness from a lecture into lived experience, right as climate events make it more necessary than ever.

If you recognise your own situation here, let's talk about how it could work for you.

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