[h=1]The Other Tool That Can (Help) Save Your Life[/h] By Rick Sapp // 02/23/2018


Of all the tools we imagine can save our lives, precisely zero of them will do that.

A tool, after all, is just an inert artifact. A tool is only a device that is put into the hands of an operator.


My friend Ben Rodgers Lee died in a car that overturned in LA — Lower Alabama — on October 7, 1991. Ben probably wasn’t driving in a particularly safe manner when he hit a bridge abutment and his car flipped. Other traffic stopped, but people didn’t succeed in helping Ben out of the car. Ben, you see, was a heavyweight even after bariatric surgery. (Still, at 350 pounds, Ben could climb a tree like a squirrel.) That day, Ben, who was always well-armed, was carrying cases of ammo to his pawn shops, and when his car overturned, it caught fire.


So, here’s Ben with a handgun strapped to his hip and, if I know or knew Ben, a couple more stashed in the car with a folding knife in his pocket. And the force of his 350 pounds upside down against the seat belt was simply too much pressure. Especially if he panicked a bit, smelling smoke.


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It’s certain the people who gathered and saw him burn inside his car panicked when they told the police they were afraid to approach because the powder inside the ammo cartridges had begun to cook off and explode.

Real life is different from the movies, and cartridges in a fire only propel bullets in the cowboy movie camp fires.
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I wasn’t present when Ben died, and have related his story as well as I recall, but the one tool that could perhaps have helped save his life wasn’t his handgun or a knife, now tucked impossibly tight in his pocket. That tool would be a simple seatbelt cutter. One should be in every truck and car; maybe this tool ought to be mandatory just as wearing a seatbelt is mandatory.
Seatbelt cutters are cheap tools. They’re simple and designed to work. They can be crucial tools in a situation where you can’t get your seatbelt off and can’t adjust to shooting upside down … not a skill we ordinarily practice at the range.



Of course, in an upside-down car, things will be rearranged inside. “Rearranged” as in nut-case crazy, and before you go pulling at glove boxes or whatnot, you’ll have to stop and think, try to remain calm, because as soon as you open a lid, everything is going to spill. So, I think a seatbelt cutter attached with Velcro to hold it in place is a lifesaving idea.


And then, as soon as you cut the seatbelt, you’re going to spill in an upside down heap and you may need to break a window to get free. You’ll be disoriented, too. I’ve watched videos online about window-breaking devices and some of them even work … meaning some don’t, but a seatbelt cutter does work and it’s a simple tool that can help save your life. It might even have helped save Ben’s life.


A seatbelt cutter is just a tool, but if you carry one in your vehicle, you’re a step toward home free. The last place you want to be if your car should begin to burn or if there are bad guys approaching is stuck upside down in the seat unable to move or defend yourself and care for your family. And seatbelt cutters are cheap. Cheap insurance.