I don't know about others, but I would need more answer options before I could even contemplate responding to that question. RCDs clearly can/could "save lives", but whether they ever have done so is unknown, and is essentially impossible to ever know ... if someone receives, and survives, an electric shock which causes an RCD to operate, it is possible that they might have died in the absence of the RCD - but, unless you have a crystal ball ....!! Similarly, if a fault causes an RCD to operate before anyone has received a shock as a result of the fault, we can never know whether, in the absence of the RCD, anyone would ever have received a shock of any sort, let alone a fatal one.
As I've just written, the proper answer to that surely has to be "we can never know" (whether they have ever 'saved a life' by that mechanism)? They obviously could - but do they, or have they ever??
Tripping on an earth fault could also prevent some deaths from fire. However as you say we'll never know. I was just trying to point out that the benefits of an RCD don't depend on someone getting an electric shock, a fact that is often not appreciated even among professionals.
But it also rules out tripping before a shock can occur, which is their main function.
Indeed - and, of course, in a TT installation RCDs are usually the only way of clearing an L-CPC fault which, if not cleared, could at some point result in a shock, be it fatal or not. As you say, a lot of people seem to focus on the role of RCDs when people do receive shocks, and overlook the 'prophylactic' role. Having said that, I wonder how common it is (in a TN installation) to get an L-E fault of sufficiently low impedance to result in a lethal shock, but of a sufficiently high impedance not to cause an OPD to operate? I would suspect that's probably pretty rare.
That's pretty much my view as well. Clearly they have the potential (no pun intended) to prevent an electrocution, so it would be illogical to say that over the years there can't be at least a few people who have been saved by them that way. But given the tiny numbers of annual fatalities from electrocution in the home in the U.K. anyway, a significant proportion of which would probably not have been helped by an RCD anyway, the number will be small. It certainly doesn't justify the "hype" which seems to have surrounded the supposed mass life-saving properties of the RCD in recent years.
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