Safety Tools inside Car: Knives vs. Seat Belt

If you hunt the road driving your vehicle every day, you should be ready to see accidents happening around you. You too may be the victim of some mishap yourself out there. You should always keep common safety tools with you, for you might get trapped inside your car and need to break a window or cut your seat belt.

The availability of a seat belt cutter or a rescue knife can save your life, especially if your seat belt gets jammed during an accident. Let’s find out how you can use a rescue knife to cut a seat belt.

How Rescue Knives Save Life

Since you don’t use a knife very often, you’ll easily dismiss one as an unnecessary item to carry around all the time. Also, you are not habitual of searching your pockets for a knife, as you do for your wallet or car keys. But, a knife can save life and this is a good reason to carry one along. 

Real Life Instances

One year back or so, a driver lost control of his car somewhere in Utah. The car bumped into an icy ricer along with three children inside. The doors got jammed and kids got trapped in seat belts.

A former police officer driving by tried unsuccessfully to open the windows and doors of the car. He made one more attempt using his firearm and this time he did it. One of the three children was breathing with help of an air pocket, still trapped in her seat belt. The police man cut the belt with his pocket knife and pulled her from the rear window. 

Using a Rescue Knife

A rescue knife is handy and you can hold it from the protected end. Make sure you pull the seat belt webbing toward you and away from the person before you start to cut it. This way you will be able to create enough space between the belt and the victim’s body.

Once you’ve cut the belt lose from the victim, cut it with the rescue knife. Ensure that the webbing slides toward the blade of the knife. If it accumulates on or near the blade, you won’t be able to cut quickly. You can make cutting easier by pulling the belt webbing across the cutter. If you are rescuing yourself, hold the cutter closely from the plastic grip, so you can prevent injuries.