Were there scores for the previous version at least?
This is from page 81 of the PPH (August e-edition)….
The 2020 model of the R2D DeBreather has been in the US by a Final Exit Network research team and by Exit International in the Netherlands. testing involve monitoring the level of oxygen and carbon dioxide the system. The unit was checked for ease of positioning of the chin strap, the effective sealing of the face-mask, and the overall comfort of the R2D.
US tests had three volunteers breathing down the oxygen to the pre-determined point of 14% which is equivalent to an altitude of 3000 meters. As one FEN researcher, Neal Nicol said, 'the mask was comfortable and it too only a few minutes to get the O2 level down, dropping at a rate of - 25 /min.There ws no significant rise in CO2 level and no leakage detected, even with a beard'. Time to loss of consciousness was predicted to take 10 mins.
In the Netherlands, an air pump circulated 12 litres of air through the closed system @2 litres/minute. A buying candle was used in the experiment - a candle consumes oxygen at approximately the same rate as an adult (250 ml/min). Level of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the system were monitored. Again, no detectable rise in CO2 was detected and the oxygen level dropped steadily until the flame was extinguished.
In all trials, when the facemask was fitted and the DeBreather attached it was found to be comfortable and breathing was easy. With the R2D Facemask it is possible to recline comfortably (unlike with the Exit Bag)
This means the DeBreather could be used outside, at the beach, in the forest etc. One could lie back and gaze at the stars. Drifting to one's death.
The original (1998) De-Breather was about 80% efficient (80% successful deaths) so the (2017) improved version that ships now should be even better.
I'm surprised no one has answered this yet. No one really knows if it works, but it was mentioned that it was written in PPH for reliability. Someone made a claim that Dr. Nitschke (author of PPH) is scamming people for it. You can find the thread here.
https://sanctioned-suicide.net/threads/r2d-rebreather-finally-released.63631/
I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be in the PPH if it was a scam