I keep a pry bar in the bedroom since here in earthquake country, a major shaker can often shift the house enough to jam the doors in the house.

For more heavy duty prying, I do have a couple long wrecking bars and wood blocks. Most rescues from damaged buildings after earthquakes are self-rescues or rescues by neighbors, not professional first responders.

When I lived in places with mass transit, I would occasionally think about carrying some smaller pry tool for subways and elevators and such, but never got paranoid enough to actually do it.

Your question reminded me of those guys trapped in an elevator in the WTC during 9/11. They pried open the elevator door, and used the metal squeegee tool to carve out an opening in the drywall shaft of the elevator, and busted through to a restroom to escape the elevator. Something like a "cop tool" would've been handy for prying, cutting, and punching through materials in a case like this.