COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Ohio’s top law enforcement officer is rolling out a new virtual reality training program for officers across the state.

Using a VR headset, a pair of headphones, and a chair (trainers require that the program be used while seated, for safety reasons), officers in training can immerse themselves in different scenarios in a way that allows them to experience the emotional gravity of a critical response, where a split-second decision could be the difference between life and death.

“How do you simulate a crime? How do you simulate the adrenaline, the unpredictability of it, the actual being there,” said Attorney General Dave Yost, who has tried the program himself. “When I was done, I actually was feeling kind of a little bit of a trauma response and actually teared up a little bit. I was, I was surprised at my reaction because it was, it was not at all like just watching a TV show or a filmstrip.”

Yost’s office has been working on the VR training program since the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. The scenarios were filmed using a 360-degree camera with help from Ohio University’s film program.

The panoramic footage allows trainees to take in every detail of the scene as the officers in the video process the information they gather in real time. Trainees can experience different outcomes for each scenario, showcasing the best and worst ways to handle a critical incident.

“If you decide to take a particular course of action — use force or whatever — and it turns out to be the wrong thing, nobody got hurt and you get to learn from that experience,” Yost said. “Plus, you remember it so much better, because it’s as though it actually happened to you. It’s the next best thing to being having experience actually on the job.”

Yost, who has told NBC4 multiple times throughout the year that he wants to make immersive, scenario-based training more accessible to all officers across Ohio, plans to put the VR sets in regional training centers throughout the state.