How to save yourself from a sinking vehicle!

Reading time 8 Min.

Rescue from a sinking car! With all the possible accident scenarios that a driver is exposed to in his daily journeys, one of the worst is imagining one locked up sinking car to become. But fortunately, as shocking as the idea might be for you, there is ways and meanshow you can save yourself and your passengers in an emergency. However, the basic requirement for this is that you keep calm and act quickly and confidently. As soon as your vehicle dives into deep water, you have to first loosen the straps and then one of the windows öffnen respectively to destroy. After freeing yourself, help your passengers. Children are first to consider. Always have one as a preventative nothammer or something similar for such a case in the car. This increases your chances of survival by a multiple. Nor should you for such a circumstance work out, so that you know immediately how to proceed in an emergency.

Timing & posture are everything

You lose control of your vehicle and a landing in the lake, river or even the sea can no longer be prevented, suppose rinse adopt a protective posture. The hands must be in the so-called "nine to three" position (or a quarter to three position) on the steering wheel. This is because when you hit the water surface, your Airbag can open up and changing your posture could seriously injure you. "Nine to three" prevents this in most cases. If you are a passenger, stay sit in your neutral position, all other sitting positions increase your risk of injury.

a cool head brings quick reactions

Panic states have a paralyzing effect, cause hyperventilation and leave you headless as a result. As soon as you realize your ride ends in the water, take a deep breath immediately and let the words "I have to concentrate and act quickly' echo through your head. Again and again! This effectively drowns out your panic thoughts. Then concentrate on your surroundings, your senses should already be sharpened many times over, as your blood is full of adrenaline. then unbuckle your seatbelt and somehow open one of the windows. Keep reminding yourself of this. stay mentally strong Tip: Emergency call only after evacuation. Don't call XNUMX until you've found your way out of the car. You don't have time for this in the sinking car and your chances of survival are reduced.

SWO what?

• Seatbelts off – open the seat belt
• Window open or broken – open / break window
• Out (children first) – leave car (children first)

As already mentioned, musst you in any case first loosen your belt. Because strapped in, it's hard to get out. Unbuckling represents the first point in the so-called SWO - Protocol which was developed and refined by a renowned security expert. The security expert's name is dr Gordon Giessbrecht. SWO stands for open seat belt, open or destroy window, leave car (children first). Before you help others, first unbuckle yourself from the harness and find an escape route.

Opening a window!

Once the seat belt is unfastened, open a window as soon as possible. At best, this should be done before the water reaches the discs. Once the water presses against the pane, escaping becomes almost impossible. If the car you are driving has electric windows, they will usually work underwater for a while. However, there is no guarantee of this. No evacuation via the door! An evacuation via the car door should be omitted! The water pressure pressing against the door will in most cases make it impossible to open. If this is still possible, the open door ensures that the car fills up with water even faster and sinks faster.

Opening not possible? Destruction!

If, in the heat of the moment, the window cannot be opened or cannot be opened quickly enough, you have to smash it. If you don't have an emergency hammer or something similar, you still have the option of using a loose head restraint smash the window. In detail you use the Headrest mounting rods. With these you give the disc in one of the lower corners a few powerful kicks. Repeat this until the disk shatters. Since the front of the car is significantly heavier than the rear, it will go under first, so don't even try to escape through the windshield. In addition, you will not be able to smash them in so quickly anyway due to their construction, with protective film & Co. and their size. The side windows are much more unstable. If you can't find anything to break the windows, use your feet and kicks the appropriate window. It is best to kick near the edge of the window. Kicking against the middle of the window is not recommended!

children first

• If you have children with you, first free them and help them out through the open window immediately. This will be easier than getting out of the car in front of the children and then coming back to free them. If there are several children in the car, help the oldest first. This may help you to help the younger ones.

Climb out the window

• Once the pane is open and all the children are free, quickly climb out of the window. As you do this, your car is likely to be filling up with water and sinking in a timely manner. Be prepared to dive through the window and quickly swim to the surface. Under no circumstances should you push yourself with your feet inside the vehicle, because the risk of injuring other passengers or even yourself is too great. Only use your arms to swim to the surface of the water.

Car already sunken?

• If you don't manage to break one of the panes before the car sinks, you still have a chance to escape through the door. To do this, you take powerful, deep breaths and try to open the nearest door. Once the car has filled up, the internal pressure will adapt to the external one. This made the door easier to open as well. You now hold your breath and try to open the door by pressing it hard. Don't forget to pull the opening handle of the door at the same time. Once you've opened the door, get out of the vehicle as quickly as possible.

time to sink

• On average it takes about 60 to 120 seconds, until a car is completely flooded with water and sinks. If you don't have a good supply of oxygen in the vehicle, your chances are not exactly rosy. So try to breathe normally and calmly. When the water reaches about your chest, take a deep, forceful breath, close your nose with your hand, and start your rescue operation. Always keep calm and don't open your mouth. Now look carefully at hip height for the next door handle and try to open the door by pressing it.

Priority: reach surface

• Once you are underwater outside of the car, push off the car and get to the surface of the water as quickly as possible. If you are disoriented or just don't know which direction to swim in, literally swim towards the light or the brightest spot you can see. Another possibility would be to exhale a little and observe in which direction the resulting air bubbles rise.

Always observe your surroundings

• You should always pay attention to your surroundings when swimming, or more precisely when surfacing! Possible dangers are, for example, a strong flow, obstacles like boulders, bridge pier or in some cases even passing by Vessels. If the body of water has a closed sheet of ice, you should try to escape through the "impact hole" in your car. You should avoid injury from any obstacles if possible. If you show signs of exhaustion or if you have injured yourself, use branches, buoys and similar things to stay afloat.

emergency call!

• If you were able to successfully get out of the car and are safe again, call them directly 112 to report your accident. If your phone is still in the car, look for other drivers who can lend you their cell phone/telephone. On occasion, let them take you directly to a nearby hospital. Since you probably have tons of adrenaline coursing through your bloodstream, you may not be able to recognize injuries on your own. Therefore, you urgently need to be examined by a doctor. Depending on the coldness of the water, the shock level and the outside temperature, hypothermia may also have developed.

rescue plan!

• Plan appropriate exercises with your family. The SWO protocol should enjoy a high priority here. Your chances of surviving such an accident increase enormously if you know exactly what you have to do. Also make your family and other regular passengers aware of the protocol and educate them on how to behave appropriately in the event of an emergency.

You should make the following combination of letters a mantra:

SWO

• As an alternative to the SWO technique, there is also another technique. This is called SCWO. The only difference to SWO is that you first free the children and only then open up an escape route. However, most security experts advise against this technique.

Emergency hammer always in the car!

• Deposit one so that you can smash the window quickly in an emergency special tools in an easily accessible place in the car. This can be a spring punch, emergency hammer or other tool. Basically, it doesn't matter which of the tools you choose, the main thing is that you have it with all of them Car trips included. Good storage positions for the rescue tool are the rear view mirror, on which you can hang the tool, or your bunch of keys. Because you can get to both of them quickly in an emergency.

Unbuckle the kids!

• Practice the unbuckling scenario with your kids. It can be challenging to unbuckle children's seat belts in an emergency, especially in child seats. Therefore, you should definitely practice the maneuver and the associated hand movements. Also try this with your eyes closed so that the hand grips are seated. A belt cutter in the car might not be the best thing to do either.

Unnecessary ballast has to go!

• You should not carry any unnecessary or heavy things with you during your rescue attempt. Because you should never forget that in an emergency, your life and that of your passengers is at stake. Since external rescuers come too late in most cases, it all depends on your correct reactions and decisions.

Of course, that wasn't the end of it!

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