June 2010    Download the Entire Issue (PDF)

Vol. 25, No. 6   What's this?

What’s More Dangerous, the Rebreather or the Diver?

from the June, 2010 issue of Undercurrent  

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Ken Kurtis, owner of Reef Seekers Dive Company in Beverly Hills, CA, took issue with this sentence in John Bantin’s piece on rebreathers in our March issue: “The use of a rebreather statistically appears to increase the risk in the hobby of scuba diving.” Kurtis says that’s a simplified statement that may not be entirely correct.

“It could be that rebreather divers are engaging in behaviors (deeper, longer, more complex mixes) inherently more dangerous than diving on air. Because they’re not doing the 30-minute, 30-foot reef dive, the ‘safer’ dives are not part of their mix, and their accident rate appears higher. So it’s not that rebreathers are more dangerous, it’s that divers are doing more dangerous things and happen to be on rebreathers. It’s like playing Russian Roulette: The more often you spin the chamber, the greater your chances are of finding the chamber with the bullet. ...