I heard from some people that EMT shears are easy to break/
twist and bend. in your travels have you found this happens
if so why?. or are they good quality. I appreciate your coments
and questions.

Litlefoot01

They are disposable items. I've never bent a pair, but I can see how you could if you abuse them

Most are one shot. Cheap and disposable. Better to toss them than decon them. When I first got in the field the opposite was true, but when you think of it , would you really trust that they were clean after a really bloody use.
There is a company that makes an excellent shear for EMS but they are between 100 and 200 dollars US.So I just use the cheapos.
Many can be reused with a little TLC.Any are fine with light use ,just the heavy stuff that dulls the edges and loosens the rivet.
Just My opinion.

I've never known EMT shear to bend and break. I suppose if you bought the cheapest discount models and then compounded the error by using them as tin snips, something some advertisers have implied is standard practice, some might fail to work efficiently for long.

Mid-priced units made by reputable companies seem to hold up well to all sorts of abuse and last a long time. Years if you only cut bandages, tape and clothes.

I'm not medical professional, but we have a pair of EMT shears that have been kicking around my mother's house since the 1980s. She showed me a flashy pair of kitchen shears she paid more than I'll say for, and bragged how they cut a penny, I dug into the drawer, pulled out the loose riveted old shears and cut a penny in half. Not that the penny test is a very good one (that was my point), but even w/o intentional babying EMT shears can last. We also haven't gone out of our way to break them...so take from this what you will.

I've never broken a pair, with routine EMS work.

Yeah, they're cheap enough to be disposable, but all are autoclavable. If you have access to an autoclave.

I have had some pairs that lasted a long time and some pairs that were not even single use.
I had one pair that the handles fell off the first time I tried using them.

Crash scissors were never meant to be fancy or to last forever but take a good look at them before buying them.
There are some real pieces of crap being sold and there are good solids ones too.
The difference is usually easy to see after you have looked at a few pairs.

I would not likely bother with them as EDC, unless you were a professional.
However if you have a car or house first aid kit they are good additions to it.
(Especially since they are usually less than ten dollars and often available for just over 5 dollars.)

I found that the shears made in Pakistan,Survived Horrible abuse,& Many,Many Cleanings in the Autoclave of a Hospital I worked at.Most hand instruments in Most hospitals are made in Pakistan.As with the changing times,Economy,etc.Made in China versions have appeared,I noticed within a few months,these very shears,& other instruments were in the trash,& the Pakistan stuff is the Dominant provider,once again.I worked in Engineering,& thus had access to Everything.I still have the extremely abused shears with me after 10+yrs. of Mal-treatment,lol!I have seen the China ones in pieces,I have Never seen the Pakistan ones in pieces.If you are going to purchase any,I would advise you to,Look for the stamping of where it was made!

Yes, it's possible to break a pair. Heck, you can break anything if you try. But I think it very unlikely if you're just using them for cutting.

They all seem to be made of some sort of spring steel. The cheapest, thinnest ($2) ones will "dive" under heavy cutting -- the scissor halves will move apart rather than cutting through. But even then, they come back together. The better quality ones ($5-6) can chew through quite a bit of stuff; you can gently tighten the rivet and resharpen them as needed.

I've found crash scissors quite useful in a number of situations. For air travel or locations where all sharps are forbidden (schools), crash scissors are acceptable and accomplish a lot of tasks. I even use them to cut up oil rags in my shop; I have ten knives available, but the crash scissors are faster. And nothing is better for those d@mnable blister packs that everything comes in these days.

I find that they often don't work well for cutting wet jeans and some other clothing.I still use them for most medical cutting chores but also carry a hook-type cutter for tough clothing. I use a Benchmade Rescue Hook which hangs on the provided neck cord. I clip my ID badge to it so I don't look like too much of a geardo.
leo

I have these in my FAK's:

http://homeware.fiskars.com/web/fiskarsweb.nsf/en/scissors_avanti_paper_scissors_839959




These scissors cut through bandages an jeans like butter. Long cutting edge for making steri-strips and they feel very solid.

EMT shere are kind of like knives or anything normal product, meaning there are great ones and terrible ones.

a pair of high quality EMT sheers will cut through anything and last for years. a pair of cheep ones will just about break trying to cut a stick on badage (aka band-aid)

I am not sure if they are all autoclavable, I would sugest rather than buying them online (unless you know the quality of the item you are buying) go to an EMS or Police supply store and feel them. look to see if they are autoclavable and see if they are sturdy. good quality ones will cut a pennie into a corkscrew easly.

I carry about 4 pair (not all at once) and I have them all over my house and a couple in my car. They are literaly life savers.

Check out the new design on the EMT type shears now offered by Lee Valley. No more annoying shelf-lip on the bottom shear, but still bluntnosed.

Many drug stores carry them. No way to say what any particular store carries might be good, bad, or somewhere in between but you can get your hands on them and judge their relative quality. Go to enough drugstores and examine enough of them and you should be able to gauge relative merit. Buy a few pairs, they are pretty cheap, and put them through their paces.

First pair I had I went around cutting all sorts of materials to get a feel for what they could do. I cut a nice 6" hole in a car door by jabbing the pointed blade in and cutting in a spiral. Impressed the hell out of me. I worked them abusively until the blades were dull and sprung.

Then I bowed the blades back, used a side grinder to resharpen them, and peened the rivet to tighten it up. They worked pretty well. Not as well as when new but good enough to reliably cut tape, gauze, cloth. As I remember it they are in one of my give-away kits. What can I say ... I'm cheap.