resqme The Original Emergency Keychain Car Escape Tool, 2-in-1 Seatbelt Cutter and Window Breaker, Made in USA, Army Green - Compact Emergency Hammer

I wish all vehicles came installed with something similar to the original LifeHammer installed in them from the factory just so everyone has the safety benefit of this little device with them any time they are in their car. Unfortunately, we don't all get free ResQMes or Lifehammers with the purchase of a new vehicle, however I've been recommending the ResQMe keychain to all of my friends and family members. I thoroughly believe I'm not exaggerating when I say this device has the potential to save your life or the life of another driver or passenger. Consider this short story: You are driving your vehicle and before you realize what's happened your vehicle is now in a body of water (for whatever reason, be it fatigue, texting while driving, etc.) next to the formerly peaceful highway you were driving on. Vehicles sink fast and stay sunk. Your car is beginning to sink, and water's beginning to rise above the top of the vehicle. You can't break any of the windows with your hands or by kicking them. You remember your cousin, who is a police officer, gave you a dinky bright yellow little keychain one Christmas (and/or other annual holiday of your choosing) that you threw on your keyring to make him happy and haven't thought about since. That keychain is the ResQMe. You remember it had a spring loaded window punch, and press it against the glass beside you, which is now thoroughly covered by water. The pane of safety glass shatters. You take a few gulps of air, hold your breath, and dive into the water that's rushing into your vehicle and make it out with only a few cuts and bruises. If you ever had to use this tool it probably wouldn't be quite that poetic, however it does have the potential to get you out of some serious situations. It's useful for any time windows on your vehicle needs to be broken so you can escape. This could, potentially, be after a collision, or like in the example above if you vehicle was submerged in water, or if your vehicle was on fire and you couldn't escape through a door for whatever reason. It also has a seat belt cutter, which is also useful in any situation where you're unable to unlatch the safety belt, be it water, fire, collision, etc. I probably wouldn't recommend the ResQMe for first responders, firefighters, police officers, etc. for on the job use, since you'd want something a little larger and heavy duty. The tools is fairly small, so it may be cumbersome in thick gloves, for example. That being said, from my experiences this tool has been quite tough. I've thrown mine, stepped on it, and sat on it. It shows no indication that it's ready to fail. For the average person, this is something you need. For a first responder, it's an excellent backup. The window punch is self-resetting and appears that it can stand up to numerous uses. The seatbelt cutter also appears that it would hold up after quite a few uses as well. The ResQMe keychain is, for the most part, small enough to keep on your key ring without it causing a problem. It doesn't add significant weight to your keys. You will know that you've put it on your key ring, but perhaps that can serve as a reminder that it's available if you ever need it. The yellow (which is the only color I have experience with) is bright and fairly easy to see. Personally, because this is an emergency tool, I want it to stand out. It comes in other colors as well for those who have different tastes. The colors I recall are, aside from the yellow, green, orange, pink, blue, and black. If you drive, you need to have an escape plan for vehicle emergencies. That could be the original LifeHammer, this wonderful keychain, or another company's product. The ResQMe is the best escape tool I've found in my searching because it fits on a key ring easily, feels sturdy, and has two tools (the seatbelt cutter and window punch). It's fairly compact, and because I always have my keys with me, the ResQMe is always along with me as well. This weird looking key chain is up there with CPR (and a CPR mask) in how essential it is. It's something you pray to never have to use, but you'll feel good knowing you're prepared. Bottom line: Anyone who drives needs one.

This is a small but potentially seriously valuable tool in case you or someone else is involved in an auto accident. As you can see in the photo there is a car key which lets you know this is not very large and is meant to be used on a keychain, which is likely the best place to keep it because if you are in an accident having access to the key still being in the ignition is more likely than any other place in my opinion. It has two devices to help you out if you are in an automobile accident or if you are trying to help someone else that has been in an accident. The first is a glass breaker. Auto glass needs to be strong to undergo the rigors a car goes through, so it is not always easy to break. This tool uses a self-loading spring action with a glass breaker spike inside the end of the round part on the bottom. You push the bottom against the glass which takes 12 lbs. of pressure to accomplish which means you need to press it fairly hard, then when it reaches that level of pressure it releases a spring loaded spike which will cause auto glass to shatter thus allowing you to escape an accident should a door be jammed for example. Or help someone else to escape a similar situation. This means you only have to be able to press this device against the glass hard enough to activate the spring, not hit it with a standard glass breaker with enough force to cause it to shatter. I would suggest pressing the glass breaker up against a piece of cardboard or something similar so you will get an idea how hard you will need to press this against auto glass to get it to shatter if and when you actually need to use it, but not against a hard surface to prevent damage to the spike inside. By having this on your keychain it is far more likely you will be able to reach it if sometime you really need it. This is made not made to break out a windshield. Those have laminates sandwiched between two pieces of glass at will be held together by that plastic laminate. The other windows in a car will shatter in to hundreds of tiny pieces when broke It just takes enough force to get them to break. The spring loaded spiked inside this is enough to cause the entire window to shatter which is what you want, especially if you are not in a condition to hit the window really hard with some other glass breaker which depends on you having enough strength after the accident to still have an arm free, reach the device and kit it hard enough to work. I think you have a much better chance with the spring loaded devices as used in this tool. The second part is the seatbelt cutter. There is a sharp blade that is inside the curved part of the unit. It has a cap on it which needs to be removed to use, however when you have a key attached to it that gives you enough leverage to easily remove the protective cap and then you can cut yourself or someone else free from their seatbelt should you be unable to unbuckle them. You simply slide the seatbelt between the gap when the cap is removed and slide it to have the blade cut the belt, this is also made to prevent accidentally cutting yourself as the blade is inside the unit. I have not tested the blade on an actual seatbelt as I would not want to dull the blade in case I actually needed it. It appears sharp enough to do the job though. And while I usually have a sharp knife nearby if in an auto accident things get thrown around and the most likely item you will be able to reach is this tool attached to the key in the ignition. It is purely a safety tool that hopefully you will never need. But if you keep one on your keychain it will be there just in case you, or someone else you see in an accident needs it to escape a serious automobile accident. I don't see how you can afford NOT to buy one of these. If you ever use it just once it will have been worth many times more than the price paid. How much are the lives of yourself and your family worth to you? How much would you be willing to pay to be able to cut your child free after a car crash to get them to safety. Or to be able to break a window to escape a car you were trapped in? I do not sell these and I hope nobody gets in a an auto accident. But chances are that some of us will at some point and having one of these devices might make the difference between being able to escape or not. Cheap insurance you hope you never need in my opinion.

This is well made tool considering the price. During my years in law enforcement I have owned and used a variety of car rescue tools but none that were this compact and easy to carry. When I received this tool I went to the local junk yard and was allowed to test the tool on a couple of cars. The glass breaking tool works really well. I do recommend that you use gloves when breaking glass, if possible. The side windows were pretty easy to break and I cleared the glass from the frame pretty quickly. The windshield was a very different story. Because the windshield is much thicker and a somewhat different kind of safety glass than the side windows I had to break the glass in several places until the broken glass was flexable and then I peeled the glass from the windshield frame. This took quite a bit of time, approximately 30-45 minutes. In my experience, you will rarely need to break the windshield to rescue someone who is trapped in a car. The seatbelt cutter resembles an envelope opener. When I used it to cut the seatbelts the cutter went through the seatbelt material quickly and cleanly for the first half dozen seatbelts that I cut. After that the cutter started to snag a bit and it was harder to pull the cutter through the seatbelts. This was mainly because the cutter blade had begun to loose it's edge. But, let's face it, unless you are a first responder and use this cutter often the blade becoming dull shouldn't be a problem for you. After all, if you're lucky you will never need to use this tool. But if you do use this tool and dull the cutter blade a replacement for this tool is pretty inexpensive. Bottom line, this is a great tool for what it is intended to do and should give you some piece of mind knowing that you have it, ready for use, of the situation ever comes up. I recommend that everyone have one of these tools in every vehicle that they own. It's better to have it and not need it than it is to need it and not have it.

While I have not had to use this tool (thankfully!!) I have one on every keychain I own. I think the quality is very good, high visibility plastic. There is no mistaking where this thing is on the keychain and very easy to find. I found the price to be very reasonable, as there are other brands charging upwards of $20 each!! I work in public safety and also have these on each of my department vehicle keychains in case a window ever needs to be broken to help someone else in need. Again, I have not had to utilize this tool and hope it will function properly should I ever need to use it but I do not have any doubts.

I've used several different type of glass breakers, so hopefully I can offer some perspective on this particular one. Unless you get a faulty unit it should break most windows, but not necessarily on the first try. It also depends where you place the unit. The smallest corner of the window is the most effective place for any glass breaker to be used. To check if the unit will actually push out the glass breaker (i.e. is not faulty), use your fingers to pull on that piece, keeping them away from the hole. If the conical tip forcefully springs out then it's not faulty. Now, some people may think it's faulty because it won't break every window every time. I'm not sure if there is any glass breaker that will break every window every time in one punch. If the glass doesn't break on the first try, don't think that nothing has happened. The structure of the window has been weakened, just not enough to shatter. From here, you should keep pressing the resqme against the window in exactly the same spot. Most tempered windows will shatter by the second or third push. *WARNING* Be careful not to push too hard as your hand could fly through the window and get cut by the glass. Practice using the tool on other hard surfaces and you will see the small indendentation made by the glass breaker. Try to practice pushing hard enough for the spring to activate but then stop pushing. This should keep your arm from going through the window. Now, I mentioned earlier there are many other glass breakers. The spring-loaded center punch types, like the one made by Fire Hooks Unlimited, work pretty well (better than resqme) as the spring is stronger. But with these you have to push with so much force that your hand will often fly through the window. The best type, in my opinion, are the kind like those made by Zak Tools. For this device you pull back on a spring and then release it along with a weight, which strikes the conical tip imparting a great deal of pressure on a tiny spot. The best feature about this type of glass breaker is you can control the amount of force. If you pull the spring back as far as you can, the amount of force will greatly exceed that provided by the resqme and will break almost any window in one strike. And since you are not pushing against the window, there is no chance of your hand flying through and getting shredded by glass. There are also the Lifehammer type devices--I have not used these so I can't really comment, but they look a bit sketchy. As far as convenience goes, nothing beats the resqme. The design is brilliant. You can keep it on your key chain, pull to separate from the keeper, and you are ready to go. This is also the most compact type of glass breaker. Since most people will rarely if ever need to use such a device, a convenient, small glass breaker is probably preferable to bigger more heavy duty ones. In summation, I would highly recommend the resqme to everyday consumers. For professionals (firefighters, rescue workers, etc.) I would look for a more heavy duty tool like some of the ones I mentioned, and get a separate seatbelt cutting tool (such as the one made by Fire Hooks Unlimited) that you can put on the same keychain. Advice to ResQMe: This tool could be perfect with a couple improvements. First, if it had a stronger spring that required say, 20+ lb of force to activate, then it would fail much less often. I understand some people (children or the elderly) may have trouble pushing that hard but the new device could be called "ResQMe Pro" or something like that and you keep marketing the original. A second improvement would be a harder tip, like tungsten carbide. These improvements would doubtless raise the cost of the device, perhaps even double it, but it would be worth it for a compact, convenient, life-saving glass breaker that works every time, without wearing down after repeated use to make it a more rugged tool for professionals.

So glad I bought this! Took it to a friend's junkyard and tested it on a car that was destined for the crusher. It worked great on the 1st try. The bright colors stand out and are easy to find in an emergency. It holds up well on my key ring that I carry daily for my personal keys and my work keys. These make a great gift for your loved ones to have peace of mind and hopefully never need to use.

Everyone should carry one of these. You never know when you’ll find yourself in the position where you need to need to self-extricate from your car OR you come upon an accident an the car is sinking into the lake or starting to smoke. You literally have moments to act and your preparedness could save a life. Not only can you use the punch to gain access, you can slice seatbelts off in a hurry. While I haven’t had a use for this one yet, I’m happy with the quality.

Got one for me and one for my Mom. Handy to have, small enough for keychain.