Yet another reason to keep a cutter handy in the car.....

C

Clang!

Joined
Jul 26, 2010
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I came across this on Facebook. It advocates rear facing car seats as long as possible, but there was an interesting passage about exiting the vehicle with a potentially injured infant or toddler.

http://carseatnanny.blogspot.com/2012/01/is-rear-facing-safer-when-youre-rear.html?m=1
When you're involved in a crash, it is usually safest to leave the child buckled in their seat. The carseat acts like a built in body board, and the paramedics should try to remove the entire seat with child still in it. However, sometimes you need to remove the child. Rachel commented that she took the boys out of their seats for a few reasons.

"There was gas on the ground from another vehicle and they were terrified. They were screaming and trying to unbuckle and get out and I just... I couldn't leave them there. I couldn't leave T2 pinned to his seat with a hunk of metal in his face. Also we couldn't get the big boys seats out, I tried for a few seconds but gave up.​
"
Click to expand...

Infant and toddler seats are almost always anchored to the car's LATCH (Lower Anchors and Tethers for CHildren) attachments with seatbelt material straps. It's faster to simply cut the straps then try to unclip them with panicked kid in the seat. Besides, car seats are only good for one injury accident. There's no point in trying to preserve them after impact.
 
I've been thinking about these kind of things more and more now that I'm a dad. I have a 5 month old son. I'm going to slip a knife into the center console of my trailblazer just for that reason. Plus, my son isn't quite old enough to carry his knife in his pocket yet
 
I would recommend that you keep dedicated seatbelt cutters like the Res-Q-Me or a pair of EMT shears for the job. Pulling out a pointy blade can make folks panic as well as the chance of accidentally cutting someone in the heat of the moment.
Seat belt cutters or EMT shears will do the job more safely.
Or you could also get a knife like the BM Triage that has a built in seatbelt/strap cutter.
 
Very cute kid. Brings back some not to distant memories. Take lots of pictures because the days are long, but the months are short.

Whatever you do keep in the car (rescue cutter, shears, or a knife) be sure it's anchored down. Stuff has a tendency to go flying in an accident, and you don't want a knife pinballing around the cabin...
 
Not a bad idea. I keep a Benchmade Triage in my vehicle. You now: blade, rescue hook, glass breaker.
Hope I don't have to use it for it's intended purpose. Its fresh off the 10k Chosera stones just begging to be used.
 
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