Mary Kay Kidwell asks NHTSA to consider the effects of a pending ruling

Louis Molino

Safety Standards Engineer
Department of Transportation
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Office of Crashworthiness Standards, NVS-112, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE,
Washington, DC 20590

Mr. Molino.

Please do not solve the "ejection" issue by installing even stronger glass in side windows. Strengthened side windows will result in increased fatalities among entrapment victims. How can you choose to sacrifice one group of victims for another, especially when most ejections are a result of not wearing seatbelts. Seatbelts save lives; that has been proven. Entrapment victims survive the initial crash because they are belted, but then they must escape quickly, through a side or back window, and this often requires breaking the glass. Stronger windows will cause these people to drown because they will be unable to escape.

I have researched vehicle immersion accidents for three years, since the drowning of my teenage grandson who could not escape from his sinking car. He would have survived if he'd had a glass-breaking tool and proper training in survival egress. His death is a devastating loss to our family. It has also become a terrible learning experience. Breaking a side window now is difficult enough with a tool or punch; strengthened glass will transform every vehicle into a tomb. Do you have any idea what it's like to drown? It is a horrible way to die. And in the case of vehicle immersion, it is preventable.

My research shows that approximately 10,000 vehicles go into water each year in the US. Most of those vehicle occupants survive because they escape immediately through a window. I've just completed a study of 54 accidents in which at least one occupant survived. The majority of these survivors are alive today because they went out a window, and many of them had to break the glass or rely on a passerby to do so. I'm sure the same theory applies to fire entrapment; quick exit is a must. For various reasons, windows will not always roll down; and when faced with the panic of landing in a lake, nose down due to the weight of the engine, murky water lapping at the door and keeping it closed, victims must exit via a window.

I am sure your goal is the same as mine: saving lives. But we must not sacrifice one group of people for another. Why is entrapment not as important as ejection? Is it because more people are ejected? Statistics are interesting and a good source for making a case. However, one life lost is one too many. I know; every day I think about my grandson and the 900 others who've perished since his death, and I wonder why these victims' lives are not as valued as those ejected from vehicles. Surely there are other options for solving the ejection issue. Options that will not kill hundreds of entrapment victims.

Thank you for listening. For more information on vehicle immersion, please go to my web site: http://sites.google.com/site/getoutaliveorg/. And if you'd like to learn more about entrapment fatalities, I have hundreds of stories, all are heartbreaking.

Mary Kay Kidwell

Richmond, Indiana

marykayk@earthlink.net

P.S. Unlike the glass industry, I have nothing to gain financially by taking on this campaign. My only reward will be the satisfaction of knowing I've helped decrease vehicle immersion fatalities. And, I will know that my grandson did not die in vain.

A Decade of 3000 Preventable Drownings

Below is an extremely informative position paper on vehicle immersion drowning prevention that started out as an exceedingly contentious exchange and ended up with a Canadian safety instructor, and much more evident in the sum of our dealings, a magnanimous gentleman, teaching me about graciousness and honor.  Much of the letter below is me angrily picking apart an opinion that Mr. Comeau had already written and submitted to us. I went in with both barrels and responded to this particular offering with heated rancor.  He had no chance to respond within the confines of the subject matter displayed below. 

Mr. Comeau as a response to this letter informed me that he had been moved by my arguments and persuaded as to the efficacy of the methods prescribed herein. He did so in a way that left me humbled and immensely impressed. Upon receiving his response I was in awe of his honor and integrity. I leave below the meat of the conversation untouched and unedited although it represents extremely boorish behavior on my part. In the end, the object here is saving lives. In that vertical, David Comeau has a resume that finds him firmly at the pinnacle of all rescue professionals and instructors world-wide. I think I’m right in assuming that a man of his character will look past my posting the struggle detailed below and realize what can be gained if we succeed.


The commentary that started this exchange and the noble gesture that ended it are not included here. My focus is to concentrate on the issue of vehicle immersion drowning death and the best way to prevent it from happening in the future. I hope that David understands the reason for me bringing this conversation to light. Accepts again my apology for my behavior in my response below and recognizes my admiration for his role in bringing closure to this part of our dialogue through his summation. Since this exchange, Mr. Comeau has continued to assist us in the cause of mitigating the danger of vehicle immersion entrapment.

NOTE: remember, this is picked up in the middle of a heated two way exchange on vehicle immersion drowning...

1.

David Comeau a top instructor with Survival Systems in white and highlighted from here on.

First, you're right, there is a lot of information on that posting, it's an information / discussion piece, not a training piece. My hope was that people would read real information from a subject matter expert and think about what they might do if they ended up entering the water in a vehicle. It was my intent to give people information in the hope that maybe if they thought about what they might do in this situation, it would come in handy for a surface evacuation. To expect anyone to escape from a sinking car based on an internet posting would be a little unrealistic.

Lonny MacDougall Egression technologies in highlight from here on...

My thought here is that he wants to distinguish that his opinion is more valid because he is a "subject matter expert". He may be an expert when it comes to ditching aircraft but his message is old and out of touch when it comes to civilian passenger vehicle immersion drowning. Throughout this offering, Comeau demonstrates his desire to project what sociologists refer to as reference authority using his years in the field, customer base, and the idea that his approach is standardized and universally accepted.

Since he hasn't seen nearly the information on this issue that I have, he has no way of knowing the effects that his brand of information has had on the civilian populace when it comes to getting out of a sinking vehicle. If he was more in tune, he'd realize that the ENTIRE purpose of the piece in the Indiana video was to portray exactly what was shown. The Indiana team demonstrated the speed at which an optimum escape methodology could be, and more importantly SHOULD be conducted.






After viewing just that video the question comes to my mind what type of expert would suggest that any occupants stay with the car, remain belted, and wait for the car to fill with water while it continues to move away from the safety of dry land. Most aircraft go into the water fast; most cars that accidentally end up in the water are travelling much slower. In an aircraft, the disparate locations of weight loads across numerous types of aircraft make the initial moments in the water more unpredictable. Aircraft are more likely to tip, roll, or invert during or soon after the accident than cars. Most cars have very similar shapes, designs and water floating characteristics. Escaping an aircraft as soon after the accident as possible apparently yields no tangible rewards according to this expert. I have no reason not to believe him. Escaping a sinking vehicle as soon as possible has many. These include being closer to the shore, spending less time in the water, having more usable time should anything go awry, and most importantly, significantly reducing the chance of dying.

2.

When we train people in HUET (Helicopter Underwater Escape Training) we take a morning to discuss hazards (injury, underwater disorientation), equipment (window & door exit mechanisms, seatbelts, etc) and finally procedures (preparing to ditch / crash, surface evacuation and underwater escape) and then a whole afternoon to train in a pool with a simulator. Each trainee goes through at least one surface evacuation and between 4 and 10 underwater escape exercises, some straight in and some inverted (the simulator rolls 180°) all of which involve the trainee strapped in to a seat with a seatbelt and a window / exit close by. Under the supervision of an in water instructor (who is also in the egress simulator), the trainee demonstrates without assistance that they can do the necessary steps in the correct order and egress through the exits. If the training involves use of a compressed air breathing apparatus (due to cold shock or limited exits for multi crew missions) then another day of training is added. The essence of the escape protocol for helicopters is just as applicable for road vehicles. There is no significant difference between a four door sedan and an S-76 helicopter, other then location of the engine / "C of G" and the window jettison mechanisms. That escape protocol for surface egress is BRACE FOR IMPACT-(AFTER IMPACT)-OPEN WINDOW-ESTABLISH HAND HOLD / REFERENCE-RELEASE SEAT BELT(inner hand)-EGRESS HEAD FIRST. For underwater escape, it's BRACE FOR IMPACT-WAIT FOR INTERIOR TO FLOOD OR OPEN WINDOW TO INITIATE FLOOD-ESTABLISH HAND HOLD-RELEASE SEATBELT-EGRESS HEAD FIRST. Once your car is sinking or underwater, you won't be able to egress until the water has flooded the interior of the vehicle. It is a world wide standard that is used all over the world, including your own Gulf of Mexico. I know that because Survival Systems trained pretty much 80% of the operators down there.

Nothing says I'm smarter than you better than an exceptional resume. But let's get this straight. The exceptional resume above is for HUET. I do not pretend to know about HUET. Other than the need to escape and get air, I would not consider the training and demonstrations that these people do, and passenger vehicle immersions similar enough to risk people's lives on their irresponsible position. The procedures for escape from a sinking passenger car should be simple and intuitive for a host of reasons not the least of which is the fact that based on Comeau's own synopsis of his training schedule, people will require one to two days in a pool with simulators, multiple attempts to master dual self rescue procedures with over a half a dozen steps each.

Even the least qualified individual reading this, should question the idea that there are no significant differences between a helicopter submersion and the sinking of a Chevy Impala as this man contends. The platforms are completely different. Just the engine location, the altered "C of G" (center of gravity) and the window operation as well as location are enough to see that there are major differences. The sinking dynamics between an aircraft and a civilian passenger car are completely different. Throughout this man's letter, he criticizes attempts made by cops and firefighters to reproduce submersion accidents as contrived. Still, one has to note that the bastion of the Survival Systems doctrine is information gathered using a simulator.

Cops, firefighters, and even the Myth Busters at least used real cars! The Sikorsky S-76 helicopter has little in common with the average 4 door sedan; of this I can assure you. The Survival Systems trainer that I saw on television is actually a stripped-out mock-up at any rate. The first major difference that comes to mind is water flow. I'm guessing by looking at their S-76 trainer that it has an interior space of approximately 1600 cubic feet. The space is cavernous compared to a passenger car. The time and water volume necessary to fill this motor-home sized vehicle is a consideration that survival systems does not address when speaking about passenger vehicles. Passenger vehicles are constructed with a design emphasis that is completely different from aircraft. This design greatly affects the way a passenger car reacts as it enters the water. It affects how people are affected by any water as it enters the vehicle.

Passenger vehicles have an interior space filled with contoured seats and benches, transmission humps, steering wheels and headrests, Each of these obstacles acts to buffer the flow of water. Each of these obstacles acts to give occupants contact, stability, grab and push points to maintain stability inside the vehicle and then facilitate a speedy egress. The interior of the survival systems trainer looks spartan, like a giant, old AMC Pacer. A huge difference is that the S-76 cabin is about eight times the size of an old pacer, or the vast majority of passenger cars on the road for that matter. The width of the passenger compartment in an average sedan is about half that of the helicopter trainer. Few passenger vehicles carry 14 occupants and their luggage in the main cabin. These variables are very important in a passenger vehicle immersion situation.

Finally, take note that the training above requires one to two days of in depth comprehensive instruction. It requires multiple supervised hands-on attempts by the participants. How will this ever transfer to the 61 year old grandmother in Tucson that only needed to answer 18 out of 25 questions correctly and be able to parallel park. By the way, I can give you an example of dozens of proverbial "little old ladies" caught in flash floods, lakes, and retention basins that did survive because they were able to get out of the sinking vehicle quickly and because once out, the survival instinct is strong.  Conversely, my files are full of the tragic stories of people that have died with no other identifiable injury than drowning. They were found trapped in a vehicle with the doors and windows still intact. I also have quite a few 911 recordings from people lamenting their inability to get out, panicked by the prospect of their pending death or angry about their inability to do anything about it. You might find this interesting. The only stories that I know of where a corpse was pulled from a vehicle with an open door or open window noted involved the deceased still being seat belted in.

3.

One of the challenges in discussing underwater escape from vehicles is that there aren't many training programs (with the exception of the military…who came to us for guidance) on escaping cars & trucks. Especially in places like Indiana. If you had come on TV with your escape clip in Louisiana, you'd have had an avalanche of responses, since many offshore workers have undergone HUET training. What generally happens is someone from somewhere official like a police agency or fire/rescue has to come up with something, so they put some people on it, usually police / rescue divers, which results in mostly good information (I have no problem with open the windows and get out quick...excellent advice) but some categorically bad advice, like not including brace position or advising people to open your seatbelt first. The fact is that training to escape from aircraft cockpits & cabins on or under water, whether as a crew member or passenger, has been around for decades. Companies that fly their workers or military aircrew over water are compelled to first analyse the risk (we fly over water..what happens if we have to land or ditch down there) then mitigate that risk with equipment (like AC floats & PFD's) and training. The same applies to employees in passenger/road vehicles that come into close proximity with water or where there is an identifiable hazard (the vehicle could enter the water with people inside). Once that hazard has been identified, the employer is obligated to either remove the risk (no more driving/ working close to water) or mitigate the effects (equipment & training) The reason car escape underwater isn't taught all over the place is because the risk isn't considered great, however that is changing. Because the training curriculum is already well established and proven for HUET, the same principals of egress are just as applicable (and indeed are being taught by reputable & accredited training agencies) for vehicle escape.

Once again, because it bears repeating, HUET does not equal passenger car egress. I'd also like to note that while I do not oppose the idea that people using your brace methodology in a submersion accident will lessen the likelihood of a flailing injury, 10,000 vehicles a year go into the water. 300 occupants die. The vast, vast, vast majority are pulled from vehicles that have closed doors and raised windows. The vast, vast, vast majority of everyone else lives. If flailing injuries are occurring, people are not discussing them, not being treated for them, and they are not impeding their survivability .


On a tangent, One might ask, where did the idea of staying with a passenger vehicle until the "pressure equalizes" come from? Based on real world results as well as Dr. Giesbrecht's study, it is the single most dangerous plan to survive a civilian vehicle immersion accident being touted today. As far as I can tell, once the cabin is completely full of water, it results in a better than 99% fatality ratio. I'd call it 100% but I leave open the idea that some people survived this type of accident, went down with the car, waited until the vehicle was full of water and only then tried to see if they were able to open a door or window and told no one.


In all my research, reviewing all the studies put out by all the agencies in all the countries that have done so, I have yet to find a single incidence of any of these reports featuring an individual proclaiming that they waited in the car until it was completely full and when the "pressure equalizes" they proceeded to exit. What I do have interestingly enough is the CBS morning show video featuring Susan Koeppen and a METS trainer (helicopter mockup) She fails in her first attempt. So do plenty of other reporters across the country that try the "wait until the vehicle is full" technique. (I have the videos).


In the real world, there are no do-overs with a submersion accident. It is a true pass/fail, life and death test. An interesting tidbit is that in nearly every test conducted with reporters, the reporter fails at least once. No reporter has ever failed to shatter vehicle glass using a quality glass break/center punch device that I'm aware of. No one has ever failed using the seatbelt mounted Escape Tip. So, back to my question, where did this deadly idea come from?


My supposition is from ex-military guys that entered law enforcement, off shore oil workers that continued to relate their training to others as these accidents happened around their sphere of influence, Hollywood and the news media depicting success stories visually, and safety trainers that have been trained by other safety trainers continuing with the curriculum. With the absence of another idea, this information became doctrine. Everyone just ignored all the data and evidence that kept coming in. People ignored that victims kept dying at the same rate every year. People ignored that no one EVER survived using the complete technique. As stories started to emerge, experts dismissed them as anecdotal.


The Hollywood reference reminds me of an interesting tidbit of information. During the filming of a Sharon Stone film a few years ago, they could not get the car to sink fast enough so they cut huge holes in the floor of the car and installed grates. Ms. Stone got stuck during one of the takes and after her rescue vowed to carry a glass break device from now on. Could not get the car to sink FAST ENOUGH??? …Hmmm…

4.

First off, the brace position. The reason at least attempting to brace yourself with your arms crossed, is to avoid injury, especially flailing injuries, which make subsequent survival actions like opening windows & seatbelts much more difficult. Yes I would agree that not all water entries are high speed, but some are...sometimes a car hydroplanes, hits the water hard and ends up on it's roof or goes in fast & hard. Wouldn't it be better to be braced and experience a soft entry as opposed to not braced and injured. The brace position is taught in underwater egress training because we train for the worst case scenario. In the first link it mentions a 60 year old man whose car went in the water and he didn't survive. Did he die from water impact trauma / drowning or was a medical condition the reason he entered the water? Was he wearing a seatbelt? Did the airbags (if deployed) effect his escape? Was he recovered inside or out of the vehicle? What was the (estimated) speed at impact? If a post mortem was performed, it would be interesting to know if he drowned secondary to being injured (knocked out) or because he tried but failed to escape from the vehicle (evidence of injuries from attempted egress). Unfortunately, those kinds of data are rarely collected and if so, in non-scientific or anecdotal ways, so research papers supporting the efficacy of things like the value of a brace position in a motor vehicle water entry are never published, unless there is a public outcry or you have a research budget. Our aviation & vehicle research, gathered over 20 years from Canadian, European and US military sources as well as petroleum industry funded studies, indicate that injury is a serious impediment to survival in aircraft & vehicle water immersions.

First, effective safety standards should be designed to affect the maximum amount of protection over the broadest cross section of the population. Concentrating on any one victim needs to remain secondary to finding the mean and working from there. In civilian auto immersion accidents, secondary injuries are not even remotely a fatality factor in the majority of accidents. Numerous studies including the most recent by Canadian researcher Dr. Gordon Giesbrecht continue to affirm this.


I do not have a problem with the bracing concept I just remind everyone that this is not an AVIATION ACCIDENT! The website explains that the occupants of an aviation accident might have as little as 15 seconds to prepare for impact. In the vast majority of passenger vehicle accidents, 15 seconds notice before impact or water entry is an eternity! More than likely, on average, average people, will just plant their feet into the double imaginary brakes on the floorboard. They will press their body as far into the contoured cushion of their seat as they can. They will grab something near them with each hand.


If it is a water accident, in a flash, most people will experience a massive deceleration at worst and then the sensation of buoyancy and stabilization with the nose of the car starting to descend a little faster than the rear. How do we know? Because more than 10,000 vehicles go into the water every year. Most of these accidents occur in water too shallow to pose a fatal threat. In all cases, over 97% of the people make it out of a submerging vehicle and survive. Why this fact is lost on many is lost on me. More than 97% of people that enter the water in a vehicle survive! Complete vehicle submersion is the first delineator that dramatically affects the death toll. If any part of a vehicle’s passenger cabin remains above the water line in a way that allows a person to breath, they almost always survive. In a fully submerged vehicle, the single most important factor, the one main difference between those that make it and those that don't, is the presence of a sealed, closed, intact passenger compartment. If occupants can find a way out, they take it. If they can't, they die.

5.

Your information on opening windows is about the same as what I learned from talking to auto engineers, the electrics should work for a little while so get them windows open quick. Most peace officers have stories of arriving to an MVA with a car in the water, lights blinking, wipers going, etc. However while I'll admit there is little factual information or concrete studies on how well or long electronic windows & door locks work underwater, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that while they may go down while immersed, they may also go up, as the engineers say, without inputs (in other words on their own) They may go down and up several times, we just don't know. One account I read on the internet described the passenger opening his window, getting out, and while watching his slowly sinking car, thought he would re-enter for some valuables. Once inside, to his shock, the windows began to close and the controls weren't responding. While manual windows are a little more reliable, most of the experts I contacted said that underwater, the window won't be able to roll down (whether electronically or manually) because of the water pressure against the pane, it's just too much for the lowering mechanism to over come. The only sure ways to open a window underwater is to break it with a specialized tool. There are tools (RES-Q) specifically to punch open windows for exactly this situation. They have been as common as jumper cables in places like the Netherlands for years since due to the abundance of canals. Dutch drivers know that if they do end up in the drink, the window is going to be opened fast & effectively. If you feel there's a risk of water entry why not get the right tool for the job. As you mention, keep it someplace close & secure so you can access it quick in an emergency.

The single most important thing you said in this entire piece is; "The only sure ways to open a window underwater is to break it with a specialized tool".

In that one statement you succinctly wrap up what could be the greatest life saving advance in the vehicle immersion argument. Other than that, the whole electric window argument reminds me a lot of the scene from the movie "My cousin Vinny" where Marisa Tomei's character asks Joe Pesci's character if a deer about to get shot cares what kind of pant's the hunter is wearing?

The windows will, won't, may, sometimes, always, under certain conditions, might, should, probably, could, work, What??? Are you serious??? FOCUS PEOPLE!!! "The only sure ways to open a window underwater is to break it with a specialized tool". Over 20,000 people have died since 1960!!! Let's just give them a little something to break the glass! Fleas arguing over a dog is another analogy I like here. You mention the Dutch as being able to open the window fast because of the abundance glass break tools among the population. Should we learn something here? We should. We should improve on their success. I have an idea. Let's design a small, cost negligible, hardened metal glass break device into a seatbelt. It will be installed in all passenger cars. In that way we'll use the best survival techniques utilized by a people that are recognized for their expertise. We'll convince people that the best chance for living through a vehicle immersion accident is to pop the belt, pop the window, pop yourself out of the car.

6.

I think the second area we seem to disagree is the issue of seatbelts. I note that you advise people to take it off immediately. This is the main mistake most people make (get that thing off, it'll drown me) Survival Systems Training, (whose underwater vehicle simulators [Hummers & APC's] and techniques are used to train the US army in vehicular underwater escape) and every other major training institution in the world that trains offshore workers on aircraft underwater escape, teach this: brace for impact-open your exit-establish your handhold reference-allow cabin to flood-RELEASE YOUR SEATBELT WITH INSIDE HAND-and escape.

I KNOW the main thing that we disagree on is seatbelts. You happen to be wrong about seatbelts being the main mistake in civilian vehicle immersion drowning. As well as wrong on when a civilian in a passenger car should get their belt off. The number one fatality factor in these types of deaths is entrapment in the vehicle. PLAIN AND SIMPLE. People are found drowned in their cars still strapped in their seatbelts as well. I don't know where you researched your contention, but I'd check your facts. Second place, as a contributor as a fatality, is so far away that it hardly registers.

You grade everything in your argument on what I'll call the aircraft standard. Your blind reverence to this standard reminds me of the religious nuts that refused to admit that the world was round. They went so far as to kill those that differed with their opinion. Aircraft enter the water differently. The speed, the angle, and the location relative to shore are all different. Aircraft are designed differently. The level of training that a pilot goes through is different. Weight and its distribution is a primary factor. Fuel quantity, cabin dimensions and proximity to engines and moving parts all are different. Center of gravity and likelihood of immediate frontal or lateral inversion is different.

The MAJORITY of all civilian passenger vehicle immersion accidents


* will enter the water at 30 miles an hour or less


* will enter the water right side up, wheels down


* will enter water where witnesses/Good Samaritans are more like to congregate


* will effectively and quickly stabilize while still buoyant - The empty cabin and trunk sit relatively high and the heavy engine, transmission and axles sit low. Water slowly enters the cabin in a predictable fashion and begins to accumulate near the front occupant's feet. As the engine and the weight of the water begin to drag the nose of the vehicle down, the air pocket makes its way toward the rear of the vehicle. It passes through the rear seat, through the trunk hatch seals until every last bit of it is gone. The car slips under water. Unfortunately, most of the breathable air is either gone or located in an area of the vehicle that is distant from the doors. This is the reason people are often found in relatively odd locations of a vehicle. Their primitive instincts have them following the last of the air until it is all over.  Even though most of the air is gone, it won't be easy to open a door or window for a little while longer. My guess is that many people panic here, use up the rest of their energy as well as any remaining air in their lungs trying to get out until forced to breathe, they aspirate water. The Myth Buster guy demonstrated this well. Here is an interesting note: Nearly every submerged vehicle found on its top has one thing in common—it is found in more than 15 feet of water allowing the buoyancy of the tires to be the most compelling force countering the forces of gravity and momentum that are dragging the engine down and affecting the rest of the vehicle. (Visualize this phenomenon and let me know if you don't get it) My point here is that the inversion took place long after the breathable air had already exited the trunk and slipped to the surface. (You may not have known this, but Master Diver Bob May does. I know because he explained it to me).

* will float for a minimum of 30 seconds


* will enter water that is less than 15 feet deep at the point where the car is found


* will be driven by and occupied by untrained CIVILLIANS!!! Bob May knows why this is important. The average civilian that Bob May swims out to help has one thing on his mind. Survival. He'll pull Bob's hair, climb on top of him, drown him in order to survive!

Bob and people like him just didn't wake up one day and decide to declare that people in these types of accident should take of their belts in order to be contrary and get attention. Being on the front lines, training together, assessing their successes and failures led to some undeniable truths in their attempts to save people from immersion drowning incidents. They include a harsh reality all rescuers have to face. You can't save everyone. Once that was established, professionals like Detective May started to look for ways to save the most people by taking into account the most common conditions likely to be faced by people they are charged to protect. Two concepts that are sure to save lives are the fact That May and his contemporaries decided early to keep it simple and to keep it consistent.

7.

Now lets look at this for a second, why the seatbelt off last...does it make any big difference. For most people it's very counter-intuitive.

You said it Counter-intuitive, want average people to survive? Play to their intuition instead of against it. In the real world, Cops deal with average people. Trying to help them survive the most common type of vehicle immersion accident faced by the driving public today they would want to:


* Reduce the number of steps in the process to a minimum


* Remove as many variables as possible


* streamline processes combining those you can and eliminating those that do not provide tremendous advantage

Think "IN CASE OF FIRE BREAK GLASS" and the classic "PULL" as examples of the correct way to work with the common person regarding safety instructions. Ask yourself why the instructions do not read "Remember to wear a glove to protect your hand from possible injury from falling glass shards, Find adequate eye protection to lessen the possibility of blindness due to flying glass shards etc. etc.” There is a reason. We just need for you to embrace it.

8.

While I appreciate your efforts to make a helpful safety film, you can't base any escape protocol on 3 rescue divers in dry suits, escaping a vehicle that just got rolled into a pond. What you guys did in that video is called a surface evacuation and in the aviation world the only difference is you get into a life raft. Yes in that situation, it probably doesn't matter whether I open the seat belt then roll down the window and get out...it worked, everybody's out in 20 seconds. On one of your links (How to survive your worst nightmare) it also tells folks to get the belt off, then describes the force of the water entering a flooding car. What it doesn't describe is people getting water up thier nose, being moved around by the tons of water entering the car, gravity being replaced by flotation and vision being lost as they enter the water. This all combines to produce underwater disorientation, the primary reason people drown in survivable water entries. This response in cold water is especially deadly as the victim has a markedly reduced ability to hold thier breath, which creates the two main factors in panic behaviour, confined space & time limit. The person bolts away from the open window, becomes disoriented and ends up moving to some little corner of the vehicle where they drown. If you don't think a person can get disorientated and end up turned around and lost in a small car cockpit...well book your self a ticket to Halifax and I'll show you. Again, what I'm trying to explain here is these egress protocols and established standard operating procedures have to work in every potentially survivable situation. That is why we brace for impact, we get the window open as soon as possible while belted in our seats. If the car is flooding slowly we get out fast and get on the roof. Your stuff post egress is fine, but since you shot it in winter you might want to mention cold shock and swimming failure, the two primary causes of death in cold water, not hypothermia, which takes considerably longer to kill people. This might effect your decision to swim to shore unless it's very close.

Are you out of your mind? I ask you because three grown men just demonstrated for all to see the absolute wisdom and undeniable logic of popping the seatbelts, insuring that everyone in the vehicle is ready to get out, clearing the windows (one rolled down and the other broken) and getting out. They re-enacted the majority of all water immersion accidents that take lives in this country. Do you not know that the VAST MAJORITY of all cars that go into the water start out on the surface for 30 seconds to two minutes? Bob May's goal is to make every evacuation a surface evacuation. If he does, civilian survivability of vehicle immersion accidents goes through the roof.


Consider this: most cars enter the water in a relatively slow, wheels down configuration. The demonstrators in the video you witnessed executed perfectly the escape procedure best suited to allow for the maximum survivability of the most victims! At this point I'd really like to see a list of people who have publicly declared to you that they were so happy they stayed with the vehicle until it filled with water, they enjoyed holding their breath until the door would finally open and then they were able to escape from their cars just like they thought they would and they lived happily ever after.


I can deliver to you lists of people found dead in their back seats necks extended into the crease under the rear window. Why, you ask? That was the location where they took their last breath. I can also share recordings of emergency dispatchers imploring frenzied callers to do anything they can to break a window and get out right up until the connection goes dead. What would a seatbelt glass break device mean in these situations. Even as I write this, these scenarios continue to play themselves out hundreds of times a year? As to other links that you've perused, please realize that they, like most, have some good and some bad info. Realize that the confusion that this causes (just like the confusion you are causing) is one of the primary dangers to vehicle immersion drowning victims.


You should know that current research suggests that confusion about how to escape is a greater danger than removing your seatbelt. As far as the dangers of removing your seatbelt immediately following the vehicle entering the water are concerned, the number of people positively affected will be greater by far than the number that will be incapacitated by vehicle movement or a torrent of water. Keep in mind, that more people by far are found dead strapped into their seatbelts in a submerged vehicle than are found with massive head injuries or broken arms and legs as the result of "being moved around by the tons of water entering the car" in fact this just doesn't happen in the real world. Why you ask?


Bob May could explain it better, but here goes. It is a matter of mass and displacement. An average vehicle might weigh a little less than two tons, so logic (and physics) dictate that it will displace two tons of water. For the average car that has 18 foot sides and is about 7 feet wide, that means a water level less than two and a half feet up the vehicle's sides even if all four tires are flat. At the same time, the volume of the cab and trunk is more than 350 cubic feet which could accommodate approximately 10 cubic meters of water or more than 10 tons of water.


While that space is empty, the vehicle is very buoyant. Much like a boat, the vehicle displaces its weight but a good portion of its overall volume remains above water. If a car was completely water tight, it would float all day with the waterline well below the window line. Since a vehicle is not water tight, water seeps in and begins to fill the lowest points in the car. The car begins to sink but only as it continues to fill. The water level inside the car rises as the car sinks and more water is flowing in because more entry points are exposed to the outside water. Water is constantly working to find level. The water level inside and outside the car are such that if the window is displaced (broken or rolled down) the amount of water entering the car is much less torrential than you describe, and it's power is quickly dissipated and diluted by the water already in the vehicle as well as the shape, size, and configuration of the cabin of the car. Put very simply, an average car can't sink far enough to allow water to come pouring in until so much water has already seeped into the cabin providing the weight necessary to sink it in the first place that it effectively mitigates the power of the flow.


Some of your other concerns should not be primary when dealing with issues of life and death. As an example, if I'm ever choking to death and a surgeon refuses to cut me because the procedure calls for a number two scalpel and all he has is a number one and a number three, I'd say he needs more focus on the primary issue. Worrying about water up the nose against over three hundred deaths a year is a position that lacks focus. Your next arguments all side with the Bob May approach. Since gravity is never replaced on this planet, I'll assume you were taking creative literary license with the displacement ideas just covered. Displacement in a vehicle is ever changing as the vehicle fills with water. Knowing this, what do you think is the best time to get out? Vision is better at the surface of the water which is another reason to get out quickly. Underwater disorientation is not a factor if the victims never go underwater. My vote is to get out before it becomes an issue.


The water is not as cold if you are on top of your car and, as a bonus you do not have to hold your breath up there. I do not see how discussing cold shock is going to make one bit of difference. If your physiology is in a condition that immersion is going to kill you, there is nothing else that needs to be said. Inside or outside of the car you are dead. The swimming failure argument is mitigated by less time in the water and a shorter distance required to reach safety. These two factors are achieved when you exit the vehicle on the surface and as soon as possible and head directly to shore. Hypothermia may not kill immediately, but Bob May knows that its effects will render you fairly useless after eight to ten minutes. If you spend this time waiting for your car to fill as it continues to move further and further away from the safety of the shoreline you are increasing the likelihood of hypothermia. If you fail to function effectively enough to enact your own rescue, you'll most likely die. Let's keep hypothermia on the list just so people might consider getting out of the car and the water as soon as possible.


As for the two main factors in panic behavior being confined space and time, I'll take your word for it if you'll take my word that confined space and time as factors are greatly mitigated if you get out of the car right away. I can't speak to a reason that a person would bolt away from an open window of a sinking car unless they were deranged or suicidal. I've never encountered such a tale in all my research.


Why is it your contention that an escape standard or protocol has to work in all situations. Does a seatbelt, airbag, or crush zone work every time? You will find this hard to believe, but your method is actually costing lives. I'll explain at the end of my entry. First an analogy; NBA basketball great LeBron James has yet to miss an uncontested two handed dunk in an NBA game. Most other NBA dunkers have similar percentages. In essence, this is the perfect protocol for scoring in the NBA. By your logic, this should be the only shot taken by basketball players from here on out. Forget the fact that my daughter has a fine little jump shot and, if I help my nephew he can score as well. If you cannot dunk, you fail. Your internationally renowned school of dunking has taught 80% of the dunkers in the world. All basketball teams use your time tested procedure. Along comes somebody who suggests lowering the hoop height so that everyone at least has a chance and you point out that with a lower hoop, some people might trip over it. In your vast experience, people have been known to trip over low objects. Besides, you've been training six and seven foot physical specimens for years using the best procedure possible so this crazy "lowering the basket idea" for the common man is a no go. We wouldn't want a few people to trip just because everyone might start taking advantage of the new more widely makeable shot process.


You describe a standard procedure that is supposed to work in all situations. My question is at what cost? Worse, is the fact that with three hundred deaths a year, it's not working. Your answer will no doubt refer to the fact that the people dying simply didn't use your procedure and to that I'd say…No kidding? BTW, it should be noted that if Escape Tips were installed in all cars, every one of your students could continue to use your techniques. Escape Tips are 100% user activated. Suicides would not be affected although if a person changes their mind, we'll be there for them. People waiting for the water to fill the cab will not be affected either but, if the door or window won't cooperate once they've decided it's safe to leave, we'll be there for them as well.

9.

If the car is flooding rapidly (this can occur when the windows are open or the windshield is blown in, among other things), we wait until the in rush of water subsides, get the window or door open, maintain a reference on the window/door frame, release the belt and egress head first, using your arms to pull yourself out and not kicking. I would absolutely agree with getting kids & infants out on the surface asap. Egressing children and the unconscious from a car underwater would obviously require you to release your belt and reach to the back, maintaining some sort of physical reference. That's a personal decision and what we like to call extenuating circumstances. The bit about swimming around breathing out of air pockets, well it sounds good and it happens in movies, but here's a little reality therapy, you lose 65% of your visual acuity in water...pool water, so it's even worse in turbulent pond or river water, low light conditions, bubbles, all that stuff is the reason that when taking training in underwater escape, you are specifically instructed to trust your physical reference only. What you can feel and hold on to, and the only way you can do that is to be belted into the seat...then everything is still right beside you, whether the car has flipped upside down or is sinking engine first. To release your seatbelt without having an open exit or somewhere you can feel your way to and escape goes against every established & proven principle of underwater egress training. Most people and "internet experts" think they can do this not because they've experienced it but because they've seen it on TV.

IF! It is a word you use a lot. "If the car is flooding rapidly (this can occur when the windows are open or the windshield is blown in, among other things), we wait until the in-rush of water subsides, get the window or door open." Keep in mind that if a window is down or missing, one of two things are going to happen. If the entry into the water is slow and the vehicle is upright, the vehicle will float on the surface while slowly taking on water. When the water reaches the missing window, it will fill and sink. In this scenario, neither the Escape Tip nor the seatbelt will be of much use from this point on.


In the other scenario, the vehicle hurtles into the water and quickly floods through the open window. The weight sinks the vehicle immediately and again neither the Escape Tip nor the seatbelt will be of much use from this point on. In the majority of all vehicle immersion accidents, the vehicle enters the water wheels down, floats away from the entry point and slowly sinks. If at this point, people were trained to get out of their seatbelts turn the seatbelt in their hand and use it to break a window and exit immediately, the death toll would plummet. In vehicle immersion accidents where a window is open or a windshield is blown out, this often turns out to be a good thing for the occupants. Only very, very rarely does this lead to death except under two conditions. One is that the trauma that affected the vehicle and blew out windows, happened prior to it entering the water and was a condition of the occupants injury (extremely rare) and two, the victim failed to remove the seatbelt. The open window loaded the car with water and sunk it before the victim removed the belt.


Disturbing here is that some victims have been found with their fingernails bent back from the effort exerted by trying to claw their way out apparently unaware that they were still belted in. The Susan Koeppen video I mentioned earlier shows what I refer to as "belt function failure.” "Belt function failure" in my mind is when a person simply can't understand the mechanical workings of the seatbelt. It is a condition that is greatly exasperated by panic. Using your time and confined space explanation, the confined space of being immobilized by the belt and the time limit now imposed by holding one's breath under water and a need for air, I imagine the sense of panic is huge. I can give you lists of reporters here that can verify that their panic prevented them from being able to operate their belt and they had to be rescued by safety divers monitoring the exercise. Want to know something INCREDIBLE? Each reporter reported the "stay belted" message as part of their story anyway!!!


Other issues with "belt function failure" include feeling trapped and frightened by the force of the water entering a flooding car. Feeling trapped and frightened while water goes up the nose. Loss of vision as the car sinks and you are trapped under the water. Underwater disorientation experienced while trapped by the belt under water. Experiencing the onset of hypothermia as you remain trapped by the seatbelt. Good news though! You won't end up in some little corner of the vehicle. When the car is recovered, you'll be found strapped in, another shining example of the deranged idea that what works for an aircraft coming in at incredible speed should be the de-facto standard for automobiles that mostly roll into the water fairly uneventfully and mostly stabilize and FLOAT for 30 seconds to two minutes.


In order to prevent the POSSIBILITY of a few bumps and bruises, let the water in first and then and then and only then, go to work on the last restraint holding you in the car. "Soldiers, take your mark, FIRE, OK ready aim" Stupid huh? BTW; "belt function failure" is a prescription for certain death. It happens. We know it happens. We've witnessed quite a few reporters in so called "contrived" situations experience it including Susan Koeppen who was trained by Survival Systems USA and still failed on national TV. Great news though despite having to be rescued she still reported the methodology that would have killed her as the method to use to save you life. HUH? Surely you're joking...

10.

I was a little taken aback by your assertion my information was wrong & outdated. Usually police agencies come to Survival Systems to ask our advice on how to do this. We train people all over the world and are considered by our clients to be the industry leader and a global authority on underwater escape.

Just because you got your feelings hurt doesn't mean you are not WRONG! It does mean however that over three hundred people a year will continue to die. Hello! Three grown men took 20 seconds to exit a car using a three step process!!! A University Study put dozens of real cars into the water and watched dozens of real people trying to get out. They studied thousands of accident reports. Their empirical research had no agenda going into the study other than to provide the best methodology to help the most people survive in the most common vehicle immersion situations. This may not be the best method for people that do an upside down "Dukes of Hazzard" car flip into raging river. But guess what the odds are that the average person will experience a "Hollywood" crash in their lifetime?

11.

My suggestion to you all is do a little more research on what professional training institutions offer. We are charged by offshore industry & the military to carry out aviation & vehicle underwater egress training for thier personnel, so our training methods and content must be proven and backed up by research. The fact that this training began as fixed wing & helicopter ditching training was due to the fact that there were some major accidents where people died for no other reason then they got injured or disorientated and drowned because they couldn't locate an exit to escape from. It's very expensive to have a highly trained pilot or petroleum engineer die for lack of training. You may be surprised at how many training centers are doing HUET. This type of underwater escape training for oil workers who fly over water has been SOP for about 25 years, the military even longer. Our sister company that manufactures the "in water" simulators (Survival Systems Ltd & Survival Systems USA…google those) has recently begun making hummers & troop carriers for US army personnel. Visit our training company website at www.sstl.com When we put information out on things like vehicle escape, that information is backed up by years of research (on file), and applied experience. When PADI come out with a diver advisory or procedure, they are operating from their established & recognized knowledge base of credibility. When public service agencies (like you all) tell people to slow down when roads are icy or have a plan in case you end up in the water, they are within their mandate of public safety. However when they turn to giving people instructions on how to handle specific emergencies, like how to escape a car underwater, you better be in compliance with generally accepted industry practices. I would urge caution on telling people how to escape cars underwater until you have made certain your information is accurate.

GET OVER YOURSELF! All the fancy trainers in the world won't make a car accident into a plane accident. All your smug mono-backslapping won't make your assertions dogmatic. It will just get people killed. In a car, the way out is usually right next to the person. He just has to get out of his belt and go out the window. The average person thrown into a life or death situation will function at a very low level the closer he gets to death.


The Bob May Indiana State Police Method, The Dade County Florida Method, and the University of Winnipeg method all agree: Get civilians out of the vehicle as quickly as possible and you will save more lives. You artificially and unnecessarily put people in harm's way with your insistence that yours is the only way for civilians to exit passenger vehicles that are submerging. Professionals that dedicate their lives to working with ordinary people know to keep it as simple as possible. What could be more simple than: get everyone free of their belts, clear the window, get out.


You should re-read your last paragraph as a lesson on how to be pompous and do the opposite until you become part of the solution and not part of the problem that continues to kill people. Bob May and people like him have a research motivation you could not possibly dream of. They unbelt the lifeless bodies of those who have drowned strapped into their cars and they interview people who tell amazing stories of survival, and they are smart enough to see a correlation.

12.

If you Google underwater car escape you'll find a lot of stuff. Some from legitimate training centers with actual expertise in this admittedly narrow field, including my colleagues from Survival Systems USA (who manage the US military training) and lots from well meaning groups who try a couple of exercises (like you guys-dry suits in the car) and feel they have the whole thing figured out. Then there are the "ex guys", my favorite (Today on Oprah "How to Escape a Car Underwater"...an ex marine tells you how). You made the statement my information is old & outdated, but compared to what? Do you guys have any research? Publish any papers? Can you direct me to any legitimate training or standards organizations who are supporting your statements? Having some auto talk show hosts who agree with you or reading other stuff on the internet that support your info is not research or established fact. Try searching helicopter underwater escape and see what you find.

Searching helicopter underwater escape??? Are you serious? Should I research planting kidney beans if my kidneys hurt? A helicopter crash and a car crash are not the same. To answer your question, your information is old and outdated compared to the procedures released by the extensive Michigan/Indiana study called project STAR decades ago as well as the opinions released by the Dade County Fire and Rescue teams starting in the 80's, The head of R&D for the Firefighters Union in Phoenix, Arizona, released his opinion in 2002 and the University of Winnipeg released the most comprehensive study ever done on the issue of Civilian Vehicle Immersion Drowning in 2006. Master Diver Detective Bob May just wrote you to bring you up to speed. But the talk shows listen to guys with fancy trainers. They don't want to listen to egg heads and read detailed reports. As long as you are willing to strap them in and spin them around, they'll say whatever you tell them to. If you can get to sleep at night with this information, then there's nothing more for me to say.

13.

The myth buster dudes, (I will admit) did some cool stuff on opening doors underwater, but I'll repeat this..filming yourself getting out of a car in a contrived situation in or on the water once or twice does not replace 20 plus years of applied research nor the experience of having trained over 20,000 offshore workers, pilots and air crew from Norway to Indonesia, on underwater escape. You don't stand up in front of a coroners inquest and say "I saw it on a car show…I saw it on the news". That's why I put my professional contact details on that wiki piece, so folks like you know where it's coming from. I don't write articles on police procedure, that's not my area of expertise, however I must say it's pretty ballsy to contact me and inform me I don't know what I'm talking about.

Ballsy?? In this case the information provided to you by May is true. May was doing you a favor so you don't spend another twenty years operating under the delusion that Helicopter crashes and cars crashes are the same.

13.

I thought your stuff was, for the most part, pretty good (have a plan, get the windows open and get out quick) and I think your hearts are in the right place. With just a few corrections on the belt & brace positions, it would be fine. But again I would carefully consider what, as a law enforcement agency, you put out as emergency escape advice. Recently we've seen an increase in requests to appear as expert witnesses in court on issues of vehicle escape underwater, typically from people working in vehicles close to water like dock side snow clearing tractors with cabs and excavators working near ponds and rivers. One of the cases involved the validity of emergency equipment & training given to an operator if he went into the water.

A Clear Pattern of Vehicle Submersion Fatalities

The Problem
Cars go into the water over ten thousand times a year. Like the person in this story, http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/local/hillsborough/driver-escapes-submerged-car-08242010 most are not seriously injured in the accident itself. The structure of the vehicle along with the deceleration characteristics that a vehicle experiences upon entering the water protects the majority of occupants of vehicles that end up in the water. Also like this person, most people are able to escape their vehicles once they go into the water. All-in-all, this proves to be a very survivable type of accident based on the total number of incidences recorded a year. Unfortunately, about 300 people die in vehicle immersion accidents every year. The shame is that there has been a viable solution for more than a decade. NHTSA has been repeatedly presented with a cheap, easy to use and reasonable method to significantly mitigate the danger of vehicle immersion drowning. Despite their clear duty under Title 49 of the U.S. Code, they have failed to act for over a decade. In 2001 they did mandate a tool to escape a trunk should entrapment occur in the boot of a car with FMVSS401. This set a precedence relating to entrapment scenarios but in the years since that action, they have not effectively addressed the passenger cabin entrapment issue.


A Clear Pattern
The principal reason that people die trapped in their vehicles is not serious injury as a result of the crash. It is not an inability to swim. A large majority of the people that die were not drinking. The primary circumstances that lead to fatalities in vehicle submersion accidents are as follows; COMPLETE VEHICLE SUBMERSION combined with NO WAY OUT OF THE VEHICLE. In cars in which part of the passenger cabin remains above the water line most people survive. Cars where people get the windows down or broken survive. Vehicles that are completely submerged while simultaneously completely sealed up with the doors and windows shut end in fatality the vast majority of the time. For people that can not get out and are trapped in vehicles that fully submerge, the end result is nearly always death.

Problems People Face
Bystanders and rescue professionals are seldom able to save people in these situations in time. The effort almost always becomes body recovery. The pocket of air scenario is a myth. Another culprit is BAD ADVICE. Some people advocate waiting until the car fills up touting “pressure equalization”. More times than not, this is a recipe for death. I would love to meet some survivors that used this advice successfully. Another bad instruction is killing people is waiting in the vehicle with their seatbelt on until after they have opened or broken the window. This is deadly advice. One nationally recognized guy that in the past advocated staying in the car until the pressure equalizes and now advocates staying belted has even made up his own acronym on the subject. I guarantee you that he has been responsible for people dying due to vehicle immersion drowning due to the misinformation.

Best Scenario for success
The national standard acronym and best possible solution for escaping a sinking vehicle is the POGO method. If you are ever in an accident in which the vehicle that you are riding in goes into the water, Immediately Pop your seatbelt and ensure that everyone else in the vehicle does the same. Open the window even if you have to break it. Get Out with the stronger occupants helping the others. A great thing to do here is scramble to the top of the car like a NASCAR driver. From here, it is easier to then make your way to safety. Do not pay attention to people that admonish you with all kind of useless advice that will slow you down and get you killed. I have seen a video of three Indiana State Police troopers get out of a compact vehicle in 20 seconds carrying a simulated baby. Keep it simple. Do it quickly. To this end, I have advocated modifying the standard seatbelt latchplate by adding a little nub on the leading edge for a decade. The addition of the little nub would turn the seatbelt into an effective glass breaking tool. This fills the requirement of rescue professionals across the country to keep a glass-break tool inside the vehicle. As a bonus it insures the seatbelt is off before the window is broken. (Too many people are found drowned in vehicles where the window was down but the seatbelt was still on.) This modification distributes an effective means of escape across the vehicle. We call it the Escape Tip and it is easy to find videos demonstrating its efficacy on the web. The Escape Tip modification has been 100 percent effective in our testing in breaking automobile side tempered glass in trials that we have conducted. My name is Lonny MacDougall and you can Google me for more info.

Secretary LaHood, We Need You

The following paragraph is boilerplate taken from a FMVSS publication.  To me, this clearly defines the obligation and authority that Secretary LaHood and by extension DOT and NHTSA possess. Hundreds of people drown each year. According to the information below, Mr. LaHood is mandated to consider all relevant, available motor vehicle safety information. I present an extremely practicable adaptation of the most widely accepted method for escaping a closed vehicle under water. The auto manufacturers could add it cheaply and easily and we might just lower the number of people dying in motor vehicle accidents annually by by as much as 1% (one percent).


Under 49 U.S.C. Chapter 301, Motor Vehicle Safety (49 U.S.C. 30101 et seq.), the Secretary of Transportation is responsible for prescribing motor vehicle safety standards that are practicable, meet the need for motor vehicle safety, and are stated in objective terms. 49 U.S.C. 30111(a). When prescribing such standards, the Secretary must consider all relevant, available motor vehicle safety information. 49 U.S.C. 30111(b). The Secretary must also consider whether a proposed standard is reasonable, practicable, and appropriate for the type of motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment for which it is prescribed and the extent to which the standard will further the statutory purpose of reducing traffic accidents and associated deaths. Id. Responsibility for promulgation of Federal motor vehicle safety standards was subsequently delegated to NHTSA. 49 U.S.C. 105 and 322; delegation of authority at 49 CFR 1.50.

Guest Opinion - Mary Kay Kidwell

My friend Mary Kay Kidwell is a tireless advocate against the danger that is vehicle immersion.  Her website is http://sites.google.com/site/getoutaliveorg .  She recently posted the following to a forum discussing the tragic death of a Minnesota woman. 

Okay, everyone, please listen and learn. For the past two and a half years I have researched every aspect of vehicle immersion accidents. Every day I receive a Google alert, and every day I relive my grandson's tragic death; drowning is a horrible way to die.

Now my mission is to teach people how to survive. In order to provide survival information that is easy to remember and implement, we must keep it simple. And we must rely on the experiences of other victims, survivors and rescue teams. The Indiana State Police Divers know from experience what to do (please watch the video I mentioned in an earlier post: Two Minutes to Survival; it's on igot2know.com ). And they also know that self survival is crucial because in most cases rescuers are not instantly available (and, yes, police are taught to call for professional divers rather than risk their own lives).

Vehicles go into water in various ways, most of which involve the front of the car nosing down at an angle because of the weight of the engine. Most bodies of water are murky at best. Everyone panics. Many professional tests have been conducted to determine the most effective method; all experts agree that immediate exit via a window is vital.

Having a tool at hand, any glass-breaking tool, is much easier for victims, who range from strong youths to the physically limited to the elderly. A tool, and proper training, will save lives. The acronym POGO is easy to remember and to implement: Pop your seatbelt; Open (or break) a window; Get Out! Then climb atop the car and call for help or get to shore.

Now, it's fine to test window breaking on land, but conditions are totally different in water. In one case, a strong man was unable to break his window after applying all his might. Fortunately, he was able to pull out the lug wrench from under the seat and use that.

In my grandson's case, he made sure his passenger, who was not a strong swimmer, got out by forcing open the passenger door. Unfortunately, he did not know that by opening that door he caused the car to flood more quickly and the door to be forced shut by the strength of the water. He was a competitive swimmer, a lifeguard, a smart kid, but he could not get out of the car in time because he had not been trained in vehicle immersion survival. It was not something he, or any of us, had ever expected to encounter here in landlocked Indiana.

Please consider helping spread the important information provided in the ISP video. And if you would like to learn more about this issue, my web site is available at http://sites.google.com/site/getoutaliveorg . Rather than speculate and debate, learn from the experts and share this knowledge with your family and friends. This kind of accident can happen anywhere, any time, to anyone. Stay safe.

“Debbie Joy Porterfield pleaded with Bryan Peltier to save her life.”

“Debbie Joy Porterfield pleaded with Bryan Peltier to save her life.”

Quotes like this haunt me. In the last decade, I have collected far too many of them. As more and more people die screaming, crying, pleading for help and 911 operators record their calls or as failed rescuers share their guilt and grief as they recount a victims last words. Here is the entire story written by Mary Devine http://www.twincities.com/ci_14871111?nclick_check=1

The government tracks about 300 vehicle immersion deaths a year just like the one covered in MS. Devine’s Story. A little known fact is that nearly everyone that is able to get out of a sinking car survives (over 10,000 vehicles a year go into the water). This is a VERY, VERY survivable accident. Water decelerates the vehicle in a way that protects occupants extremely well. Most, like Debbie from the news story have little or no other injury. The only problem then is that some have is the inability to get out. Only these people, the ones trapped by glass and doors in a vehicle that sinks completely under water become fatalities in most cases. If they get out they live. It is that simple.

“Debbie Joy Porterfield pleaded with Bryan Peltier to save her life.”

Tragically for Debbie and the thousands of mothers, fathers, sons and daughters that have passed before, help can seldom if ever get there in time. People swimming out to help almost never have tools and professional rescuers are usually too far away to respond in time.

BUT, if every vehicle had a small addition to the latchplate of their seatbelts, then all people would have the tool they need to save themselves. This is the KEY. After years of research, I know it to be true. Training can only go so far. It will reach some people but in the end, there will still be far too many fatalities. In this way, it is kind of like CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation). It is better than nothing, but not much better. To save the most lives in cardiac arrest situations away from medical care, you need an AED (automated external defibrillator) People wishing CPR was more effective will not make it so. In these cases, like vehicle immersion cases the situation requires the right tool to maximize the chance for success.

Here are some video links. I have university studies, expert witnesses, victim advocates and Gigs of data. What I need is for someone to tell the story.

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/?q=Lonny+MacDougall&vid=7EC79317BB8D56BBA8D57EC79317BB8D56BBA8D5

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/?q=Escape+Tip&vid=15150E9F0DF88513704C15150E9F0DF88513704C

Common Sense Should Prevail

P.O.G.O
Pop belt - Open Window - Get Out

Florida leads the country in immersion drowning deaths. Their Highway Patrol and Dade County's Fire and Rescue point to the number of bodies that they have recovered in submerged vehicles belted in and window down as a good reason to take your seatbelt off first.
They have had this up on their website since 2001. http://www.hsmv.state.fl.us/news/2001/pr031401.html

On this webpage, http://www.escapetip.com/ there is a video from a Florida news team where the reporter is completely briefed on how to exit a submerged vehicle still forgets his belt and has to be rescued. I’ve seen others. The reason is simple. People are people. Treating a housewife or accountant or bartender like a fighter pilot or police officer is not prudent. Let me explain. For the average person, going into the water in a car is going to come as a complete shock. At best, they’ve seen a news piece on it or read a story in a paper or magazine. Pilots and cops have been trained for this scenario. Joe and Jolene Average is best served by taking into account that their instincts are likely to be stronger than their intellect for the duration of this ordeal. Mr. or Ms. Professional will transition into a response ingrained by training might do well enough venting the water first to survive, fighting a potential gasp reflex, then undoing their belt and making their way out of a vehicle. For The Average family, this is not a good idea.
In my humble opinion, the best way for people to survive a vehicle immersion accident is to have a short, concise plan that they know how to put into action the instant the vehicle hits the water. Reminding someone to stay calm after their car has just careened into water may not be the best use of an action item. (the fewer steps that this plan has, the better it is according to university research)

POGO is real simple. A 2006 study by the University of Winnipeg reaffirms its efficacy and wisdom. During this study, the researchers performed nearly forty repetitions of a vehicle immersion and researched as much history from around the world on this issue as they could. Their conclusions were published in a comprehensive report that blamed some vehicle immersion deaths on multiple issues including; the mish mash of information available, the widely distributed advice to wait until the car fills with water (which as it turns out doesn’t work) the idea to use a cell to call for help, having a glass break device in a bad location, and there were other reasons as well. His full report suggests keeping glass break devices in obvious places in cars and using them immediately. On this page is a brief synopsis of some of his views http://www.albertarowing.ca/documents/GiesbrechtandWilkerson.asp Item 1 has a small blurb.

Here are some explanations of my views of a solution to this dangerous problem.

First, you should immediately unlatch your seatbelt and insure that everyone in the car does the same. Some experts disagree with me here. Their argument is that water coming into the cabin will toss you around the vehicle. They sometimes base their opinion on demonstrations done with huge aircraft water submersion trainers and the techniques taught to our nation’s military aviators and law enforcement professionals. Sometimes they are just accepting and forwarding what they heard thus dispensing their own conjecture. In reality, the average passenger car will take on less than 1000 cubic feet of water when completely full. The design of a car means that when the driver side window is displaced, Water will cascade over the top of the height of the body of the door and literally fall into the lap of the driver. In effect, the first few hundred gallons of water that enters the car will pin the driver in their seat. Then the flow will slow slightly until the car fills completely. The process will be quick but not too violent due to the relatively small amount of water needed to fill the compartment, the relatively small space the water must occupy, and the seats transmission humps, and other irregularities inside a vehicle interior that impede the smooth flow of water. At issue here is that the shape and characteristics of a car with a single side window missing is more akin to a soda bottle being held under water and filling up than a flower vase being held under water and filling up. A car, like a bottle, has to let air out of the same opening that water is rushing into. In relation to the size of the interior space of the vehicles passenger compartment, the opening provided by the window is small. This has a slight constricting effect on the amount of volume that can pass either direction (this is important because as water tries to get in, air is trying to escape.

Numerous videos show that the rate at which water enters the vehicle and the duration that it flows is not overwhelming at its worst. A vase has a large opening and when placed under water it fills immediately and with a large rush of water. This rush of water is the "picture" that some experts want to paint but it simply is not so. The last reason that the seatbelt comes off first is not so obvious. When the water hits you, you have a relatively small chance of experiencing a gasp reflex and aspirating water. In a second, you may be choking. In other scenarios the water may increase a sense of panic, still other immersion victims mah lose track of their conscious directives and start acting on instinct. (stranger things have happened when people face peril. In an instant a person is covered in water they want to, and should be leaving, not messing with a seatbelt. If for any reason, even if they are not choking, terrified, or drawing a complete mental blank, if the belt does not easily unlatch, then the true meaning of panic would be immediately apparent.

One individual actually made up his own acronym SOS GO even though POGO had been the accepted standard for quite some time. During all the chaos that currently surrounds defining the correct procedure to exit an immersed vehicle, this clunky and hard to remember acronym only served to add to the confusion (remember here that Dr. Giesbrecht’s research shows that confusion serves to get people killed also that his research clearly shows that popping the seatbelt first is the superior methodology). The only further thing I think that is worth mentioning about SOS GO if I have not been clear up to this point is that it advocates taking your belt off after breaking the window. I think you know my feelings on this. In the process he's trying to displace the standard POGO Pop Belt, Open window, Get Out. That has been the standard for years (remember the Florida firefighters and the people they find still buckled in with the windows down).

Although not mentioned here, there are some people that still advocate trying to open a door. This is not a good idea. The car will fill quickly with water causing it to sink too quickly. This is especially true if other people are in the car. A review of accidents over the past few decades illustrates that it is common for one person to get out and others to perish trapped in the vehicle. Parents have been implicated in killing their children because they got out first and could not get back in to save their kids. I wonder if the deck was stacked against them? Pressure differential could cause the door to close, trapping people inside or trapping loose clothing or hair. The now flooded vehicle is heading toward the bottom with these poor souls being taken along for the ride.

Did I mention that I feel you should pop your seatbelt, smash the side window, and get out of the vehicle as soon as possible and before the car goes under water. Speed is the key.

Some people report ad-nauseum that the electronic windows should work for a time after the car enters the water. Pinning your hopes to this idea will work for many people. For others, it may prove a death sentence. If the battery fails while the window is in mid travel, you now have a moderate volume pathway for water to enter the vehicle but an opening too small for the majority of occupants to exit safely. Ask every manufacturer to guarantee that their windows will continue to operate under water. Not a single yes will be forthcoming. The military spends a great deal of money and effort trying to isolate their electronics from water. The reason is simple; dirty water (water with any impurities) acts as a comprehensive conductor usually making an exposed circuit path invalid and usually defeating any switching properties of said circuit. Water dissipates the efficiency of a circuit and torque cannot be developed by an affected motor since an induction field can not form. When this occurs, said motor useless.

Many people still talk about the need to equalize pressure by letting the vehicle fill as a way making the door easy to open. Equalize the pressure is a last resort move. It does not always work; it exposes the occupant to peril and provides the least chance of success of surviving an immersion accident. In a way it's like CPR. It doesn't really work all that well but by this point, it's all we got left. Watch this Top gear video http://www.flixxy.com/escape-sinking-car.htm to see what I mean.
Other videos that I have seen, accident information that I've recorded, and reports that I've read, demonstrate that this tactic is wrought with danger. One needs to remember here that cars are full of air and because water has greater pressure than air, it will be difficult to open the door. Many still insist that as a primary tactic, one should let the car sink to equalize air and water pressure, it is thought that at this point, one should be able to open up the door or window. Should be able to, is still not good enough since over 16,000 people have died this way since 1960. Keep in mind that if there was ever an accident where Murphy and his laws will be waiting at every turn, a car crash into water has to qualify.

On TV, a safety expert checks with the safety divers, and the "victim before lowering a vehicle into the water at about .5 miles an hour. In real life it happens at 40 miles an hour in the blink of an eye. On TV, the vehicle is tested to insure the windows and doors work. In real life an impact with a guard rail deforms the door so the window can’t roll down all the way, or the fuse box blows. TV demonstrations are usually done in daylight at the docks. Real life accidents can happen at night in the tall reeds of a swamp. TV demos have rescue personnel standing by. Real life accidents require a seven minute response from the local responders and fifteen minutes to suit up for diver safety. TV reporters often do the exercise several times before they finally get it right. In real life, this is a PASS / FAIL or better put, PASS or DIE exam.

In the end, the best practice is to get free of all constraints and don’t encumber yourself with new constraints on the way out. Popping your belt, smashing your window and getting out gives you the best chance for success. It works the quickest which in the Canadian study directly correlates with success. In my opinion, every vehicle should have at least some simple glass break tools in all rows and they should be accessible to both sides of the vehicle. What if you were trapped in a car on fire and getting out on one side was better than the other? What if debris blocked one path? I’m ready to hear any and all opinions.

Thank you.

Minnesota Bridge Failure Highlights Vehicle Entrapment Drowning Issue

Minnesota Bridge Failure - I have been sending this piece to reporters and news teams covering the tragedy. I hope that someone takes note that I am addressing the ability to save thousands of lives in the coming years. If something good can result from this tragedy then these deaths would not be in vain.

What I'm about to share, not too many people know. I've shared this with hundreds of reporters. Few get the ramifications of what I share time and time again. I have seven years of research, numerous studies and reports, thousand of news stories from around the world, and U.S. government statistics (contact me through my website at www.escapetip.com and I'll walk you to the web site that has the stats). These statistics tell the ongoing story of needless death and suffering over the past seventy (70) years. The first case of vehicle entrapment drowning that I know of happened around the time of the great depression. (I'll give you the names of the people that died in that accident) Over the last fifty years, around fifteen thousand people have perished due to vehicle entrapment drowning according to numerous sources.

It is probable that some of the people that died at the I-35W bridge collapse were trapped inside their car with no other, or minor injuries. They tried their doors and they would not open. They tried their windows, and they would not open. Their vehicles filled with water. As they tried their windows again, the water rose. As they pulled furiously on the door handles the water rose. These people followed the ever shrinking air bubble until it was gone. They died, minutes later. Think of what went through their minds as their fate became clear to them.

Some of these people may have been able to break the glass and made their way out. This fact is irrefutable. It happens too often to be ignored. Every year, people escape vehicle entrapment drowning by breaking glass and exiting their vehicle. Every year, people are saved by Good Samaritans that when unable to open the door, grab a rock, bar, or hammer to break the glass and as a result, save lives. Too many experts say that this is the best method to save your own life if trapped in a vehicle under water to discount this solution.

Hundreds of people have died due to bridge failures in decades past. Many were found trapped in their cars under water. There are too many reasons to list as to why cars end up in the water. It's safe to say that as long as cars drive near water their will be accidents like this. Some will say that the solution is more guardrails. Millions have been spent in Florida and lives have been saved. Unfortunately, cars have already jumped those rails and lives have been lost. What amount of money would be needed to put rails around every body of water in the country? Probably trillions.

A reasonable response is to put a group of glass break devices in every car made. The solution at www.escapetip.com would cost pocket change per vehicle. The advantages of this solution are that it would be;

*Low cost
*Easy to understand
*Easy to use
*Available to all passengers in all rows of the vehicle
*Located in the same place in all vehicles made
*Redundant at multiple locations
*Usable at windows throughout the vehicle
*Not easily lost
*Noticeable if missing
*Occupant decides when to break glass
*Requires occupant to remove seatbelt BEFORE breaking the glass
*Same proven technology that military used to escape aircraft cockpits

In the past seven years I have waded through stories about WalMart, MicroSoft, Ford, Dell,and on and on while being told that this story is an advertisement for a product. MY ANSWER NEVER WAIVERS! Tell the story of the problem and the people will win in the end as the government investigates the vehicle entrapment drowning issue. People will survive accidents like this If they can get out of the vehicle. The dead need a voice to stop this needless and unending trail of tragedy.

Yesterday...

Yesterday marked the twenty third year gone by since the passing of famed television journalist Jessica Savitch. A tough and gritty newswoman, Savitch was a passenger in a stationwagon with her beloved dog "Chewy" when the driver got lost and ended up in the old Deleware Canal near New Hope, PA. When her body was discovered, it was clear that she had been fighting to escape the vehicle.

Nearly 10,000 more souls have been lost since that day. What is it going to take...

Jessica Savitch, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jessica_Savitch&oldid=109784657 (last visited March 5, 2007).

WAITING MEANS DEATH!

The video that I have given a link to below should be the end all as far as discussions go about how to escape a sinking car. I, as well as other people close to this issue, have agreed for years that WAITING MEANS DEATH! I have tried to get people to listen to no avail. The same stories keep getting churned out that give people information that not only decreases their chance of survival but actually increases their chance of dying. All the major networks have run this story with this bad information included in their pieces. Several times, I have spoken to the reporters and producers at length before their segment. THEY RUN THE PIECE ANYWAY! It is time for this to stop. The problem is well documented. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or NHTSA has documented over 3700 vehicle immersion deaths since 1994.

A Canadian study that I have recently read bears out the awful truth of what I just asserted and gives the absolute best advice that I have ever seen to date on what needs to happen in order to escape a vehicle once it enters the water. It was researched by Dr. Giesbrecht at the University of Manitoba. The high points of their findings include the fact that in all their research;
· the longer that an individual stayed with a vehicle,
· the deeper that a car went into the water,
· the more the vehicle was allowed to fill before people exited,
THE OCCURANCE OF DEATH AS THE RESULT WAS INCREASED!!!

Check out this video and see for yourself that what I’m saying here seems plausible. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yADmpA1XFvw
Since we began this quest to make cars just a little safer, thousands of people have died trapped in their cars under water. Many of these people could have lived. We know this because;
· There have been witnesses that have seen them fighting to get out.
· There have been Good Samaritans that tried and failed to get people out of a vehicle and saw them fighting to escape as they sank.
· There have been Good Samaritans that have succeeded in freeing people who in turn swear if not for the brave actions of their rescuer, they would have perished.
· There have been cell phone calls to 911 and loved ones when recorded, or retold, convey the fear and helplessness that fills those final seconds of life.

There is a way to help out in the vast majority of these types of accidents. It is called the Escape Tip. The website is at http://www.escapetip.com/ . I show it above as a picture so that anyone can see how simple its addition to a vehicle could be.

At this point I want to point out that no matter what anyone else says, there will be accidents that happen where people would have benefited from the addition of the Escape Tip to their vehicle. Experts will say that the electric doors and windows should work. But they won’t every time and people will die. Experts will say that the pressure should equalize allowing the door to open but it won’t every time and people will die. (As we can see from the Top Gear video, THESE experts are wrong.)

Experts and people calling themselves experts will say all sorts of things, but in the end, who wouldn’t feel safer having a little addition costing pocket change to speed the process of exiting a vehicle should a car end up in the water or on fire, or should the battery die, or should the driver hit the “all lock” buttons for the door or windows, or any other event that might lock people in a vehicle and lead to injury or death?

Egression Technologies has a list of vehicle safety advantages concerning the installation of the Escape Tip Automotive Safety device.
· Escape Tip is the only current concept that insures that the seatbelt is unlatched before the occupant can smash the glass. Staying belted in as the water comes in is bad advice. If it takes to long to undo a belt once the water fills the car it could be deadly advice. Too many rescue professionals have stories of unbelting corpses after a vehicle is recovered from water.
· Available from all seating positions. Multiple units through the vehicle. All occupants have access to one or more even in a 15 passenger van. Occupants can choose what window to break to exit. If something has incapacitated the person or people in the front seat, people in the back have a way out. If the master window and door locks are engaged, this is especially critical.
· In the same place across all model lines and in all manufacturers products. Occupants will know what to do and where the tool is located even in a strange vehicle. Occupant will be able to find tool in the dark or in murky water. Good solution for blind occupants who could depend on the consistency of location of the Escape Tip.
· Device is a simple mechanical application. No complex mechanical assembly to malfunction. No powered system can fail. The device can’t “go off” unexpectedly.
· Always located in an obvious place. Not hidden, not locked away in a glove box or under the seat. You’ll know you have it and where it is.
· Can’t get misplaced, or be dropped all the way to the floor when you need it most.
· Can’t be easily removed from the vehicle without occupants noticing.

The Escape Tip is a cost effective, practical, reasonable response to the issue of vehicle immersion drowning. Other ideas don’t feature all the benefits that are inherent in the design, application and location of the Escape Tip. In North America, 400 people die each and every year trapped in their vehicles under water. What do you think should be the next step?

Escape tip, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Escape_tip&oldid=93770220 (last visited March 5, 2007).