Saving Your (Own) Life. My brother in the Houston area (I sometimes call him "Tex" — yes, call him "Tex"; he loves that!) sent me a belated Christmas present that arrived Monday and included this intriguing device: "MULTI FUNCTION EMERGENCY TOOL" for automobile drivers. The packaging contains pictures and the following text to describe what its constituent features can do for you.

HAMMER TO SHATTER SIDE WINDOW WITHIN SECONDS

NEEDLE DEFLATES THE AIR BAG

BUILT IN RAZOR SHARP BLADE TO CUT THROUGH THE SEAT BELT

MOUNTED WHISTLE TO CALL FOR HELP

EMERGENCY FLASH LIGHT

I am most impressed, and will tell you why.
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Less than four months ago we had a HIDEOUS auto accident that killed three female friends who were driving home to Newark from a birthday party in Jersey City when their Jeep ran off the road and into the Passaic River. Mysteriously, altho the women were conscious and screaming for help from a good samaritan who saw the accident and tried to get them out of the vehicle before it sank, the women were trapped inside and drowned in 35 feet of water.
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This happened on a roadway I have often traveled, at nite, mostly on my way home from seeing friends in the bars of Manhattan. There's just a narrow, riverbank, parklike strip, no significant structures nor other barriers, between roadway and water, and I had no idea that the Passaic, which hardly qualifies as a mighty river as seen from above, was 35 feet deep anywhere!
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A woman I worked with at the time, Nadirah, speculated that the car may have had power windows and power door locks that were shorted out as soon as the car was partially immersed in the water, so the occupants could not open the windows because there is no manual override handle for power windows, nor could they even open a door because the water pressure outside was far greater than the air pressure inside. Modern automobile windshields and windows are resistant to shattering, so hitting them with a fist or elbow or shoe won't work. So they drowned.
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I don't know if that is what actually happened, but it sure sounds reasonable to me.
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Many years ago I saw a fictional crime story on TV about two women who get locked in a car with an exhaust leak into the passenger compartment contrived by criminals out to kill them. They pounded on the glass with fists and feet to no avail, and escaped only because they found a metal object with which to shatter a window, reach the outer doorhandle, and escape.
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I then heard that there are small, spring-loaded metal hammers one can buy at an auto parts store or elsewhere by means of which one can shatter automobile glass to effect an emergency escape, and thought that that would be a good thing to have. I'm not sure the metal hitch on which I carry my keys would suffice. But I didn't get around to buying such a device.
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Now my brother has sent me a tool by means of which I might shatter a window if I should be trapped in my car after an accident, with water rushing up or fire threatening, and the door rendered immovable by water pressure, crushing or obstruction. (I have manual windows and door locks, and the horrible Passaic River accident warned me away from EVER getting power windows and power door locks.)
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You too may want to carry a device with which to smash open your car windows in case of an accident — especially if you have power windows and door locks. You can thank me, my brother, and Nadirah, later, should you ever need to use such a hammer to escape imminent death.
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If you find this suggestion worthy, please tell family and friends. You'd feel terrible if someone you care about died, trapped in a car, because you didn't warn them.
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(FYI, the latest U.S. military death toll for Iraq, as reported at the website Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, is 1,464.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 4:57 AM