Brave rescue prompts a smashing new tool
Police are getting new tools to save them vital seconds in life-anddeath rescues.
The change was prompted by the rescue of a woman from a sinking car in Auckland. The two officers involved had to ask a Fairfax photographer to pass them a rock after they failed to smash the car windows with their batons.
A total of 7900 Resqme springloaded glass-breaking tools, costing only $10 each, will now be issued to frontline officers nationwide.
They can be attached by keyring to the officers’ belts.
Constable Paul Watts, who pulled the woman to safety from Waitemata Harbour in March with colleague Simon Russell, told the latest police magazine Ten One: ‘‘One of these devices would have made a difference. We could have used it straight away and had her out in half the time.’’
Photographer Simon Maude’s pictures of the dramatic rescue quickly spread around the world.
Inspector James McGrogan, from police headquarters response and operations, said that, when he saw them, he thought there had to be a ‘‘better way’’.
‘‘The police staff were forced to use desperate measures to save that life.’’
The idea of a handheld glassbreaking tool came from an out-
a sider, he said. Its obvious uses would be to rescue people trapped in sinking cars and at crash scenes, or to rescue children locked in hot cars.
It was more effective on sidewindows than on laminated windscreens.
Watts said it was not the first time he had struggled to smash a window with his baton. After a tornado struck Albany in 2011, he had to rescue a woman trapped in her car by a fallen tree.
He said it took many strikes with his baton to break through her window.
McGrogan said watching recent footage of a rally car sinking after plunging off a race-track into water showed him that rescues needed to happen quickly.
‘‘It just shows, if a car is in a river or a harbour, it comes down to a matter of seconds before it’s submerged and if you can get someone out that bit quicker, the better.’’