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Firm issues lifejacket safety warning
WEDEL, Germany (CNN) -- An award-winning German lifejacket manufacturer has warned that 25 percent of the jackets it services are unsafe. Ulrich Ehrmann, a spokesman for Bernhardt Apparatebau, based in Wedel, told the Web site of Boating Industry International that many are in such serious condition they would not support a human in an emergency. Most of the problems relate to the carbon dioxide cartridges used to inflate the buoyancy cells. "In many cases, the cartridges are either pierced or are empty, or they are missing altogether," said Ehrmann. "That would mean that in an emergency, the automatic inflator would not have functioned, and, had the wearer been unconscious and unable to top-up the lifejacket manually, they would have drowned." Other defects include corroded cartridges, missing protective caps and punctured buoyancy cells. Most of the problems occur because the owners do not follow manufacturers' recommended checks, says Ehrmann. "Of the lifejackets sent to our servicing department about 20 percent had exceeded the servicing interval." Bernhardt Apparatebau's Secumar Window range of lifejackets won an award at the 2002 Marine Equipment Trade Show in Amsterdam in November.
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