Per Capita which kills more?Deep Air or RBs

[100days-a-year]

I saw the recent painful thread on Deep Air and was amazed at the rancor and got to thinkingA lot of the fatalities I see mentioned at depth are RB related,at least it seems so.

I was wondering if the same folks who are against deep air are equally vehement in their opposition to the RBs that have similar records of fatalities.Or are they safe?


It seems that every few months somebody is dieing or having near fatal issues with RBs.I don't have much experience with them other than helping a buddy rebuild a Russian one off ebay a few years ago,they seem like a lot of work and have a lot of failure points.Since you can't spearfish on them and I spearfish 300-400 dives a year I am not really interested in one.

I rarely dive mix though I am trained and have the gear.I use it for wrecks like the QON,Wilkes etc..and a few deeper ones up here.

 

[LiteHedded]

rebreathers. although a recent rebreather fatality was a combo of both...

 

[marchand]

The thing about rebreathers that kills people is that something can be very wrong, but you can still breathe so it is harder for your mind to make that connection. definitely something you don't want to combine with deep air.

 

[Atomic_Diver]

How come all the deaths I've heard about on Rebreathers are of the Male gender? I've yet to hear of a Women's death on a Rebreather- why is this? In addition how come more Deaths occur on CCR as suppose to SCR (actually now I think about I've never really heard of any death on a SCR.. I think)?...

 

[PfcAJ]

Probably because technical diving is performed by males much more than females. Also, CCRs are more common than SCRs nowadays.

 

[Sloth]

lol not trolling at all!

Dont know enough about rebreathers to really voice an opinion but I will say the number of deaths by highly trained divers on rebreathers seems crazy. Usually, most deaths seem to be divers diving beyond their training/ability/comfort so it's suprising when you read about X diver with years of experience dying on a rebreather.

Honestly, the complexity and maintenance scare the crap out of me but I've dove with a few buddies that enjoy them and are anal enough to maintain them.

For the hell of it I went and looked at all the fatalities during 2009 posted on decostop and listed out what they were breathing from. Doesnt prove anything one way or the other but I was surprised at the number of rebreathers. Also didnt post the obvious non-tech related ones like the golf ball diver.

rebreather - Israel
rebreather - NOAA diver Key Largo
rebreather - NJ
rebreather - Chester Poling wreck
rebreather - Britannic
rebreather - vandenberg
rebreather - oriskany
rebreather - eagles nest
unknown - ginne springs russian diver
unknown - UK
unknown - Atlantic City
unknown - Lake michigan
unknown - North Kingston
unknown - Hollywood Beach FL - solo not specified
unknown - Ginne springs - not specified
air - Monterrey bay - planned dive to 225 went to 250 - air
trimix(?) - Philippines ox tox breathed wrong bottle at depth

 

[drbill]

I've done a lot of deep air diving in the past (basement depth 200 ft for me) but haven't developed enough nerve to try a rebreather. As a less-than-informed observer, I question my ability to focus on my video work AND maintain adequate focus on a rebreather at the same time. When I dive deep air, I can actually use my video work to assess the affects of narcosis on my dive (although not oxygen toxicity).

 

[StreetDoctor]

Sloth, the lake michigan death was a rebreather at around 300'.

 

[rjack321]

Except for a few dim wits here on SB most people aren't doing "deep air" like they were 20yrs ago. Like sub 200ft on air. Most people doing those kinds of dives have switched to CCRs and yes the fatality rate is high. Is that a function of the CCR? I don't think so. 300ft+ dives were killing people on air (60s-80s), then they killed them on trimix (80s-90s), now they killed them on trimix & a CCR (90s-2010). Its a function of the types of dives & divers way moreso than the gear.

 

[Sloth]

Except for a few dim wits here on SB most people aren't doing "deep air" like they were 20yrs ago. Like sub 200ft on air. Most people doing those kinds of dives have switched to CCRs and yes the fatality rate is high. Is that a function of the CCR? I don't think so. 300ft+ dives were killing people on air (60s-80s), then they killed them on trimix (80s-90s), now they killed them on trimix & a CCR (90s-2010). Its a function of the types of dives & divers way moreso than the gear.

Yeah I tend to agree but it will be interesting to see what happens now that rebreathers are showing up more and more on aggressive recreational dives. The oriskany and vandenberg deaths makes me wonder if this is foreshadowing things to come or if it's just an anomaly.

I also think that the rebreather community is more hypersensitive to fatalities then OC so I think more attention gets shined on rebreather deaths then OC. To bad someone isnt tracking worldwide OC tech fatalities the same way worldwide rebreather fatalities get tracked. Looks of info could be gleamed from that.