Hi. After reading some stuff from Professor Popsicle (thanks Andrew_S, very interesting):

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2008/02/07/giesbrecht-cars.html

Where do you find a keychain size center punch / seatbelt cutter like this? Have you ever tried them?

Thanks
Frankie

Okay, I managed to read the text on the picture. It's a ResQMe tool:



Thanks anyway. Have you ever tried it?

http://www.resqme.com/

I have not personally tried them, so I cannot give a review.

It's called a Res-Q-Me I have one in my truck and one in the suv. I tried the seat belt cutter and it works as advertised, I also tried the window punch and it too worked as advertised. You can purchase them on EBay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Res-Q-Me-Firefighter...p3286.m20.l1116

I have one of these:
SwissTech 5-in-1 Rescue Tool

I haven't used it to escape, or rescue anyone, but I have used it to put stars in a plastic CD case; looks like it would shatter auto glass. I haven't messed with the cutter because I don't want to dull it. I have the split ring attached to my sun visor. It is pretty secure, but comes off (freeing the seatbelt blade) with a good tug.

I think it was $15 or 20 at BJs. I have seen them in Walmart and Target as well.

Would it work in the water?

My wife & I each carry one on our vehicle keychains. I've been thinking about putting on on my tractor keychain - just in case it flips and I want to "undo" my seatbelt while hanging.

I would think it will work in water just fine, though the spring and release mechanism of the punch might corrode if immersed in water (I would think it's enclosed components wouldn't dry once wet).

Ken

I tried the resqme on some scrap cars during training at the firedepartment. The center-punch works well, but don't be too gentle on it. The first time we tried it, we gentle put it on the glass and slowly pushed it against the glass. The punch was activated, but nothing happend. The other attemts whith a short swinging motion turned the glasses in to pieces, easily.

Seatbelt cutter works well to, but do not use it on a 90 degree angle. In a 90 degree angle it refuced to cut the seatbelt. The way the webbing is made, makes it really hard to cut at that angle. It did work like a charm on a 45 degree.

I wear mine on mine belt, on the d ring of mine flashlight holster. Easier to access and mine keychain was already kind of full. I do recommend a lifehammer installed in cars, since they are bigger, has no springs system to fail, easier to spot and harder to loose. I can easily imagine the resqme to be lost/dropped, due to it's small size. The resqme is handy when you don't own a car, like me. Can't put a lifehammer in every car i borrow or rent...

Your post hit a nerve for me...I'll leave it that, however I will relay a bit of an incident that I was involved in that is eerily similar to your post.

The very last call I went on when I was a firefighter was this exact scenario. A farmer flipped his tractor over the side of a dirt path on his property.. The ROPS on the tractor initially saved his life but he was not able to get the seatbelt undone and was left hanging upside down. His daughter found him about almost 2 hours later and we were dispatched, however it was too late to save him despite our best attempts. We noted there was a lot of blood and cuts and torn nails on his fingers and shirt, our chief told us that these were caused by the man clawing at the seatbelt in an attempt to free himself...

I recall that in our discussions afterwards, the same mention of having a seatbelt cutter available to him could of possibly saved the man's life.

I have never seen one with the window punch.
I have seen people, usually equipment operators, with snip-its on key chains or stuck by the magnet to something where they can reach it easily.

These are snip-its
http://www.tangiblesltd.com/snippit.htm

these are super snip-its
http://www.tangiblesltd.com/supsnippit.htm

Quite a few of the knife makers are including window punches on the end of knife handles now too.