RBW Traitor

CharlieT

Very well put, have some green, M8

CharlieT

The common factors are a rebreather death and Alex Deas but it's not the same instance that we are discussing

CharlieT

There's an ancient Chinese proverb "Never buy same rebreather as man with many problems"

silent running

I hate having to point out the obvious but...

Given the number of deaths and that fact that they keep coming it seems that labs, manufacturers, training agencies and all the discussions on RBW have not been able to do very much. If you think the above 3 resources can improve Rebreather safety on their own, how long should we wait for them to rise to the challenge? How many more deaths would you say are enough before people should resort to the litigation?

I don't find litigation very attractive either as it usually results in significant costs added to production of the product and laws/regulations that are cumbersome and sometimes too broad for those of us who like to follow our own path. But it seems that it's rare for any industry to effectively police itself and people will eventually start suing if there are enough deaths/injuries that follow patterns and which suggest that improvements can be made...

Drmike

I honestly dont know what rate is reasonable. Some deaths will always occur of course. But what we apear to have here is a much larger incidence of death compared to OC diving or other risk sports and I think that needs to be addressed. Im on the mailing list of diving fatalities (OC and CCR) and given that there are more tech OC divers than there are Rebreather divers its strikes me that the death rate for tech subgroup (OC) is very much lower than RB divers (if you assume all RB divers are doing tech dives which I dont think is true in reality, see thread on average dive depths)

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Cave diving is a sport
Wreck diving is a sport
Diving in general is a sport

'Rebreather diving' is not a sport
its the delusional obsession with a highly dangerous and often inappropriate piece of equipment

Drmike

Yes -yes! that has been something I have long since anguished over.

Theres an English term called 'Grandfather'ing'

what it means is when certain historical practices and attitudes are continued and perpetuated.


Ive have long since wondered if the amazingly relaxed attitude towards standards, testing, validation, reliability etc exhibited by bulk of users is just that, the grandfathering in of the attitude and expectations of the early pioneers who were baiscally homebuilders used to things not working and being unreliable.

We are well beyond that time now. As you said, its time to grow up and red ourselves of the old attitudes and start looking at these things the same way we look at any other consumer goods

__________________
Cave diving is a sport
Wreck diving is a sport
Diving in general is a sport

'Rebreather diving' is not a sport
its the delusional obsession with a highly dangerous and often inappropriate piece of equipment

Drmike

I dont see any proof that his intention is to put anyone out of business. His stated intention (to improve safety standards) is on his site - I have currently no reason to disbelieve that and neither I suspect do you.
I may have missed it, where did Alex state that his intention was to put them out of business? IF (big if) any mnf has caused a death do you put the cost of that mnf going out of business higher than the cost of a single life? ...Strike that - I know you do

and he would be countered by the defense expert witness (who would most likely also be bias) doing exactly the same, as they have been so far, so its fair! Or should the relatives not be allowed the same privileges as the mnf?



so you agree that something needs to be done and suggest that 'humans' are the thing that needs to be 'done'

where the poor design comes in the chain of events doesn't diminish the mnf liability, a fault is a fault if it directly or indirectly leads to a death then they could and should be held accountable. Does the Meg manual teach to check the cells haven't fallen apart before every dive? Does the training manual mention it? This is an example of a potentially lethal fault that at the time even with proper application of training a prudent diver, that was well trained, could easily not be able to bail out and survive. What other hidden faults are ether yet to be covered in training?? These are the faults that we are concerned with primarily faults we simply aren't aware of yet so no training protocols exist. If you do truly believe that all deaths are human errors failing to follow training then either you (instructors) are at fault for not providing adequate training or human nature itself is at fault.



if you truly believe that units and training aren't to blame and its all human error then you can only conclude that people are dying en mass because they make human errors. If you believe that you had better quit your job today because YOU are teaching something that you believe people in general SIMPLY cant operate with a reasonable degree of safety. If they could the death rate wouldn't be so high.

This is why despite being asked many times I wont ever teach CCR - I simply don't believe humans are generally reliable enough to dive them safely as they are in their current form. This is why I advocate only using them when necessary and cringe at the concept of 'recreational ccr'

I may have missed it, where did Alex state his intention was to remove market competition? Is this a fact or your assumption? What does him not proving he can do better got to do with selling his services

I suspect hes going to use the list to assist a relative in court and to defend against the mnf bias expert witnesses and convince a judge(s) that safety standards for rbs is low and needs to be improved - OH MY GOD HES EVIL!!!

It could be used to wipe my ass - doesn't mean for a fact its going to be. What right do you or anyone else have to dictate what use public domain data can be put to? Its public data he can do with it whatever he wants


Again are you so sure that's his objective? where did that come from?

We? so you do feel ownership for the data? The data was public domain before and it still is. We didn't give him anything he couldn't have found. what we did was help him get the data. that's all. We did that to help save lives and so far I see no reason to dis believe that's NOT his intent with the list and expert witness work. Do you have any proof to the contrary?

Tell that to a relative.

What I get from you is a clear message on what price you place on a human life, that a human life is worth less than risk of putting an at fault mnf out of business (talking in general not about any mnf or case)

Look why do you think APD and CCRB aren't part of mother companies? why do you think Martin and Kevin set up separate companies to mnf their RBs? The answer is in case they get sued they can go bankrupt and not hurt the mother companies.


His right and freedom to offer his services as expert witness has f_ck all to do with how many hours his Rebreather works flawlessly

Now I'm not saying I know for a fact that Alexs intention is not to put others out of business and world domination - I honestly don't know - but unlike you intil I DO know I'm not going to be calling people names and going on a witch hunt

__________________
Cave diving is a sport
Wreck diving is a sport
Diving in general is a sport

'Rebreather diving' is not a sport
its the delusional obsession with a highly dangerous and often inappropriate piece of equipment

UWSojourner

Hi Mike,

We continue to use hyperbole (IMO) that tends to cloud the discussion. My best estimate of mortality rate on RBs (based on Alex's data) appears to be 0.2-0.7% per year of rebreather diving. That may be high relative to OC diving, but would we really characterize it as "en mass", or "dropping like flies"? I'm not saying it can't be made better. And too high, as you've often pointed out, is 1 if that one is your relative. I understand the emotional component of the argument.

However, for the sake of discussion, let's say the true, underlying mortality rate per year of Rebreather diving is 0.5%. How much more would a diver pay for a RB that has an observed mortality rate of 0.05% (10x better)? My guess is most wouldn't pay, let's say, $5k more so that their expected number of years of diving prior to a fatal accident can be moved from 200 years to 2000 years. Maybe, but I would suspect that many divers would believe that for that amount of money they could simply change their behavior slightly (cancel some dives, maintain gear better, follow a checklist, etc.) and get just as much of a drop in observed risk.

You always seek facts. Here's one to support the idea that engineering might not be the only solution. <mCCRs>. We have strong evidence that simply removing the solenoid drops mortality rates. Maybe there are other explanations, but the most obvious to me is that the lack of a solenoid CHANGES THE DIVER'S BEHAVIOR with respect to any dive. I think that's a critical point. Changing the diver's attitude has already been shown to statistically reduce observed risk. Suing to ensure a certain theoretical mean time between failures has not.

silent running

Hello UWS, while I think your point about MCCRs is certainly important, as are all aspects of diver behavior, unless the industry is willing to ban solenoids outright, it still doesn't address the issue of whether ECCRs can and should-officially required-to be made safer to some degree than they are now. If there are cheap, easy fixes for jumping in with the power off-pressure sensor or rising PO2 activated powerup-then they should be made and if a mnf has to sued to make this happen, then so be it. As the demise of communism has decisively shown us, humans are far from perfect and, above all, not perfectable in their nature.

And whether we like it or not, the safety records/mean times between failures of both the auto and aviation industries have been improved by litigation... -Andy

RonMicjan

So it all winds down to one word...intent.

If Alex was not in the process of building and presumably marketing and selling a rebreather that has been touted, since day one of its development process, to be the bulls bollocks for keeping even the most numpty of divers alive, (admittedly my paraphrase), then I would have no question that his intent is to further the safety record of all CCR diving.

Ah, yes, BUT, he IS touting such a system, and now he stands to benefit from any lawsuit brought against a manufacturer of competing product. Otherwise why ADVERTISE? you advertise because you are selling something, but Alex is giving his expertise away for free, why would he do that if it (the expert witness job) is the PITA that others have said it is? Because he stands to gain market share from his testimony.

So we have established a motive...profits,
we have established opportunity, once per year,
It all comes down to intent, and since I cannot read his mind, and none of us can, I look at what comes from his keyboard, and the message I hear, loud and clear, is "there is no other root cause of a CCR fatality, than design error", or "its never the divers fault." Which is BS IMO. Not turning the unit on, not turning the gas on, running out of gas, not changing scrubber, diving a known broken unit, not using a checklist for assembly, not carrying adequate amounts of bailout gas, how can these be design faults, unless you are talking about the design of the human brain? People that run out of gas in thier car, shouldnt dive CCR's either.

Mike, you say that Alex's stated intention is to improve the safety record of CCR's. Of course you believe him, but I tend to be a bit more skeptical. I still say, build it and they will come. Why wont anyone answer that particular question? Where is this wonderful machine?

Mike, when have you known any human to be infailable? You said as much yourself
"This is why despite being asked many times I wont ever teach CCR - I simply don't believe humans are generally reliable enough to dive them safely as they are in their current form. This is why I advocate only using them when necessary and cringe at the concept of 'recreational ccr'"

The difference between you and I is that Im not afraid to help people learn how to stay safe on the machine. I think that says a lot more about my respect for human life than your "I dont want to teach CCR" that sounds like pure selfishness to me.

If humans are involved, things will be flawed, Period. I dont care how idiot proof you make something, there will be someone out there that will be able to kill themselves on it. Kevin is right, its an attitude problem. There are those out there who want thier diving gear to clean itself, fix its own faults, fill its own tanks and scrubber, and do everything but wipe thier nose when they hit the surface. I will fail this type of diver in my class. These kinds of people should not be diving this type of equipment. I have said this a hundred times, its on the first page of all my dolphin mod stuff.

The below is taken directly from my CCR Dolphin webpages, I wrote this 5 years ago. Its the same message I preach today, personal responsibility.
If you want a device to nanny you, buy the car that parallel parks itself, but stay away from CCR's.

This is the most important part of this page….using a device like this one CAN KILL YOU!!!!!

I take no responsibility for your abilities, construction skills, material selections, or your judgment of your own diving skills. The only responsibility I take is for my own diving, I know that if I screw up, I will be DEAD, and no one to blame but myself. If you are not disciplined enough to maintain your equipment, do a proper predive check, use checklists, tear down and reassemble your own Rebreather now, you have no business modifying it. You should take a rebreather course from a nationally recognized training agency taught by an instructor who has the proper qualifications and plenty of time on the same unit, before using any rebreather. Make sure your family knows the chance you take by building and modifying life support equipment, make sure your dive buddies know what to look for if you need help, and make sure your life insurance is fully paid up and you have the Divers Alert Network master or preferred plan. The material presented here is for informational purposes only and not a construction plan for doing this yourself. Dive Safe. written in 2002.

Mike, Do you see the part there where it says "no one to blame but myself" I thought since you only read out of my posts what you want to hear, (and argue about) I just figured I needed to point this little tidbit out to you.

Ok, I have made all the points I think I need to, i brought out what I felt was a valid point, about a member of our community, whom I felt was betraying the intent of the forum, none of my questions to him have been answered, but the messenger has encountered the crucifixion squad, (or was it a witch hunt squad?) thinly veiled as Dr Mike, who just wants to argue for the sake of arguing. There is a reason I take many breaks from this forum, besides going diving a lot. : )

I report, the rest of you in the community decide. Those who want to trust, buy the nanny machine, (oh, right, there isnt one available yet) those who believe in personal responsibility, dive anything you like, as you are much better prepared to deal with emergencies and malfunctions.

Thanks to those who PMed and blobbed (red and green : ) I appreciate the feedback and encouragement.

Got money burning a hole in my pocket, time to go diving.

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