droppping out the draegers (whicj there have been deaths on) all other rebreathers added together don't come anywhere near the number of people diving the turtle..
since AP wount supply numbers best guess is that there are about 5k active inspirations out there..
Most turtle divers are very active and tend to be pushing limits and doing dives that are inherently riskier.. its not uncommon for an experienced inspiration diver doing 50m-70m divers with 60 minute bottom times(over 2 hour run times), not very common for OC divers.. I know I have done my share of dives with over 3 hours run time..
There are also way to many divers pushing the scrubber well beyond manufacturers limits, its not uncommon to hear I'm getting 5 or 6 hours on my scrubber, thats just asking for trouble.
as for the other rbs out there here are some of the numbers I have heard for units produced (remeber this is just hearsay)
megladon 25
prism under 100
azimuth few hundred
rb80 under 100 (I think thats very generous)
MK15(and kin) heard all sorts of numbers ranging from a few hundred to 1000, I have been told of only 1 death, I originally wasn't aware of any..
frog ??? but not many
KISS unknown but mostly homebuilders who generally know their units and don't push things.. besides it cant operate at the depths the electronic CCRs can.
Infinito 100+ military, commercial and those evaluating the unit. I hear its been used to over 250m
most of the deaths occurred very early on, relativey few in the recent past.. this is probably due to better training but alot of divers are still pushing beyond their training limits. I would like to see a pressure transducer added to the inspiration that would lock out use beyond what you were trained for(would help me sell classes also
).. Cis-lunar did something like this locking out unit features until the diver was qualified to use them..
There are many more OC divers dying on much easier dives. but the diver should still enter the water with the attitude this device can kill me at any time.. know your options and be prepared to use them..
The most dangerous issue (even worse than hypoxia) since its more likely is hypercapnia.. your judgement gets so clouded that the correct choice may not be made.. Most divers refuse to accept that its that serious of an issue and until you have experienced the effects first hand its probably discounted.
one of the deaths the guy admitted to another person that he was getting 10 hours on his 3 hour scrubber.... Darwin at work... In the US I can only think of two deaths, 1 shouldn't attrbuted to the unit he dies in a chamber more than 6 hours later after blowing a massive amount of deco and 1 that no info has been posted and the guy was solo so its doubtful we can find out what happened.. in fact many of the deaths have been solo dives so anything that is posted is sheer speculation.
Look at madmole's site he has a breakdown of whats publicly known.
The one thing that scares me personally is when another RB diver is not available I will generally solo, and large pelagics can be a problem.. There are no bubbles to scare sharks and on more than 1 occasion I have had encounters that made me nervous.. with a second set of eyes you can look out for each other.
