Re the safety pin thingy, imagine a few things. You are an airman last class, hitching a ride across the jungle of Panama in the co-pilots seat of an Army OH-13 which is equipped with litters on each skid (think a MASH re-run here). Now imagine that there is an unconscious soldier strapped to the litter on your side of the aircraft. Imagine that the soldier "swallows his tongue," and is in real trouble. Imagine that the pilot, an officer of course, tells you to open the first aid kit, find a safetypin, and run it thru the soldiers tongue. Now comes the fun part. Imagine removing your seat belt, leaning waaayyyy out of that little bird (there are no doors by the way) about 1000 ft up, fishing in the soldier mouth, finding his tongue, and running the safety pin thru it, from top to bottom (easiest to go in this position). Been there, done that. In addition to all of the other stuff, the tongue is mainly muscle, really hard to run a less than needle sharp pin thru. But he lived, or so I was told...