Hi friends!

Last year when I visited a friend in Mumbai, he was very much moved by a local news. He told me that a few days back in Mumbai some children got themselves locked in a car while playing in their society. They couldn't come out of it and were found dead in it. I wasn't aware of this news and was quite surprised to learn it.

I had heard a news some years back where a couple parked their car in a garage. They dropped down the shutter of the garage to spend some private moments in the car. So they put on the air-conditioning of the car. Unfortunately, they fell asleep after some time and were found dead in the morning due to asphyxiation.

I knew about the possible asphyxiation in such a condition. But my friend told me that a closed garage & AC was not necessary. Even a closed car can create the scarcity of Oxygen inside the car if stayed long enough.

He added that when someone get locked inside a car, he / she needs to break out the window galss to come out. I had heard about the following trick before. Hope you too have heard of it:

My friend told me that this is a common myth that you can break the window glass with the help of metal rods of headrest. Its of no help. You need to carry a safety hammer in your car all the time.

I didn't know about it. He said that most people are unaware of it and put their lives at risk. Since he is a filmmaker by profession, he told me that he is thinking to make a short advertisement film on this issue.

I forgot about this after some days. But he actually worked on it and completed this film last week. Do watch it here:

I hope this film will help raise awareness about this life-threatening issue.

As technology is improving day by day, vehicles are getting more and more sophisticated. Today we depend on vehicle electronics to roll down or roll up our car windows. And if something fails, we get trapped in it as there is no manual system for operating it anymore. Also sometimes, people can't even open their seat-belts and they need to be cut.

So when you spend hundreds of thousand of rupees to buy a car for you, please do not ignore to spend a few hundred rupees more to buy some emergency safety tools too. Instead of a sledgehammer, I'd recommend you to buy a cutter.

I feel it will be difficult to break the tampered window glass with a hammer and will be easier to cut it. But you can make your own choices. Here are some:

• Vow Car Safety Hammer (Orange)
• Resqme 01.100.01 Keychain Car Escape Tool (Black)
  (You can find many more. These are just for examples and links are NOT a referral link).

What if you do not have any tool to break the car window?

Automotive side window glasses are tampered glasses to make them stronger. These are 8-10 times harder than a normal glass. Windshield is more difficult, in fact, it won't break open even if you can shatter it down. It is made of laminated glass. Laminated glass is two layers of glass with a layer of PVB (polyvinyl butyral) in between.

As automotive glass is specifically built to take significant direct impact, perpendicular to the plane of the glass; it would be better to avoid a perpendicular force on it. Act smart!

Take the metal pegs from the headrest, insert one of the metal pegs down inside the area where the window rolls up & down. Try to push and jam it down a few inches where the seal is. Then pull the headrest towards you. This will flex the window glass laterally and break it easily.

Here is a video of it. Although it's in Japanese, but I know you're smart enough to understand it just by watching only 😊

I don't wish you ever get in such a situation but we should always be adequately prepared for emergency. It mostly caught us unaware!

Always be safe!

Love,
@xyzashu