I just found out how hard it is to remove that blade guard from the RESQME car escape tool. You can’t waste time busting a gut trying to pull that out when you’re about to drown while your car is sinking in a flood. You might need the blade to cut your seat belt.
That’s where the key ring comes in. It’s included with the kit. You attach the key ring to the end of the blade guard and that gives you a better grip to pull it out.
You can find many other videos about how to use it. But if you need to free yourself from a jammed seat belt, you’ll have a really tough time if you can’t pull the blade guard off.
There’s also a cable tie included, presumably for the same reason.
This is the follow up to my post about how to escape from a car sinking in a flood. Our new car escape tool arrived. It’s the RESQME window breaker and seat belt cutter.
We checked our side windows and they are tempered glass on both the front driver and passenger side. The other way you could check is to partly roll down the windows and look at the top edge. If the edge has layers, it’s laminated; if it’s solid, it’s tempered. The window breaker is not effective on laminated glass on the windshield, according to the AAA study.
It’s rare to be in a situation in which you might need this tool. The best way to avoid it is not to drive in flooded areas. Turn around, don’t drown.
Sena and I saw a Weather Channel segment on how to escape your car if it is sinking during a flood. It’s mainly a reminder to turn around, don’t drown. However, there were a couple of interesting things about it. One was the quiz, in the format of a “how would you survive?” quiz with 3 choices: Fasten the seat belt securely, shatter the window, or call 911. The right answer is to break the window and I’ll have more on that because there was no guidance at all about how to break the window. We thought that was an important omission.
The interesting thing about the video clip is that I thought I recognized it from a paranormal TV show, The Proof is Out There with Tony Harris. Most of the time, the conclusions tend to lean toward skepticism regarding paranormal explanations, but in this one, Tony called it a “Possible Miracle.”
In both the Weather Channel and The Proof is Out There, the vehicle was red and looked like it was bigger than a compact or standard size car. The way it moved in the flood water was very similar in both. The YouTube on The Proof is Out There was from Season 3 and it was posted on October, 2023. I’m pretty sure I saw it long before that. The video on the Weather Channel looks like a clip from the full video, and it stops early before the rest of the action.
In fact, there are a few news report videos (from the same news agency, the archives of which no longer have the video for some reason) of the incident, which happened in 2006 and which involves a woman in a red SUV in Pueblo, Colorado who drove into flood waters. The SUV sank, but not before attracting the attention of rescuers, reporters and camera crews. The SUV went underwater with windows rolled up and when it was later pulled out, the windows were still rolled up, unbroken, and all the doors were closed. It has never been clear how she escaped, although many speculated that it was a miracle.
Sena noticed that the windshield wipers were still working, something I had missed. A couple of YouTube viewers (in The Proof is Out There video) mentioned it, but nobody responded to the implication that the electric controls to the lower the windows might still have temporarily worked as the vehicle went under. That still doesn’t explain how they got rolled back up.
It’s also noteworthy that, despite the news story mentioning the driver’s name, where she worked, and that she had called her brother while the SUV was sinking, there doesn’t seem to be any record of anyone asking her how she’d gotten out of the vehicle.
This post is going to contain several YouTube videos, but I’m trying to keep them to the relevant minimum. I think, in all fairness to The Weather Channel about omitting how to shatter the vehicle window in order to escape sinking and drowning (during the TV episode mentioned above), they have posted a video in the past which does provide excellent guidance.
In this video, they mention something Sena knew about but which I was not familiar with—the little tool called a seat belt cutter and glass breaker. You can buy them just about anywhere, often for less than $20. The AAA web site has clear instructions for what to do in situations where this tool would come in handy. In that same web page, there’s a link to the AAA research study done in 2019 about these tools, which contains more helpful advice, such as that the spring-loaded tools work better than the hammer type, and that they work on tempered glass, not laminated glass.
In any case, we’re sold on the glass breaker and it’s on order. However, we would prefer to turn around, don’t drown.
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