Car Safety: Lightning-Strikes

Saw this news story, linked through Instapundit.

It's a very scary story. A lightning-strike on a car destroys the cars electronics (or maybe melts something in the lock mechanism) to the point where it is impossible for the person inside to open the door and leave the car.

And there is a fire burning under the hood.

A nearby policeman (and at least one other onlooker) helped the trapped woman out. They began by breaking a window.

I suspect it is standard practice for first-responders to break windows, or bring heavy-duty cutting tools to help remove the roof, if it is impossible to otherwise extricate a person from a car-collision.*

It's actually fairly rare for a car-collision to result in an explosion, though a collision that results in leaking gasoline can make fires/explosions a potential danger.

However, this is in the realm of almost-never-happens rarity. But the Police officer still used the break-the-window method for extracting the woman who was in danger.

Insty mentions his preferred emergency tools for such situations. Even though events like this are rare, the ResQMe or LifeHammer tools would be useful for enabling emergency exits from cars. The needs for such emergency exits can be many and varied; tools of that type appear to fit most of those needs.

Perhaps I should buy one or two of these tools, myself.

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* Many people may not be aware of this detail: most windows on the car (except for the windshield) are typically made of tempered safety glass. This is a kind of glass that is hard to shatter, but when broken tends to break into lots of small pieces that don't have sharp edges.