Stories of knives used as tools in life-or-death situations
Files of manufacturers are filled with letters from users who had a knife they could reach, open and rely on when their life was in danger. If you have had one of these situations submit your story and photo to us for possible website publication.
News Stories:
Police officers rescue young girl from car fire.
Examples of a few of the stories that have been reported to us:
- An Illinois driver, trapped in his burning pick-up truck, was rescued by two men, one of whom used a Gerber knife to cut the seatbelt so they could pull the driver to safety. See the full story here.
- A North Dakota farmer gets the sleeve of his work jacket caught in the power take-off of his tractor. As he struggles to free the cloth, he is able to get a one-hander out of his pocket, open it quickly, and cut the cloth before his fingers and arm are mangled by the revolving shaft.
- A Colorado rancher working on his irrigation system is pinned under a pile of irrigation pipe. As the breath is being squeezed out of him, his only hope is to get to his knife and cut the rope holding the stacks of pipes together. Once the rope is cut, the individual pipes roll off the stack and he escapes with his life.
- An Arizona EMT arrives at the scene of a car crash to find the driver pinned behind the wheel. He needs to use one hand for the pry bar to free the passenger. With the other hand, he grabs his one-hand opener and cuts the seatbelt to complete the rescue.
- An Oregon electrician working overtime on a Saturday morning falls through a skylight opening with a loop of 12-gauge wire wrapped around his ankle. The wire breaks his fall but leaves him hanging in the skylight shaft upside down. He can’t twist and climb back up the wire so he cuts the wire and takes the fall on his shoulder. He breaks his collarbone but he lives to tell about it.
- A Minnesota canoer and his dog are on a trip in the remote Canadian wilderness of the Quetico Provincial Park. On a portage below a roaring falls in a rocky gorge, the dog unexpectedly jumps for shore, the canoe tips and starts taking on water. The canoer gets caught in the anchor rope and is being sucked down by the loaded canoe in the powerful current. He gets his one-hand-opening knife out of his pocket, cuts the rope and watches the canoe and gear go down in 30 feet of water. Once free, he grabs a branch growing along the rock wall and pulls himself to safety.
- A Wisconsin deer hunter in a treestand loses his balance and falls but gets his foot wrapped around the rope ladder. He’s suspended in midair and doesn’t have the back and upper body strength to pull himself up. He grabs his folding knife from his belt pouch, cuts the ladder and takes the fall to the ground, rather than possibly choking to death by hanging upside down for hours.
- An Iowa deer hunter takes a late-season trip into unfamiliar woods that borders a nearly frozen stream with steep banks. The hunter gets too close to the stream bank, which caves in under his weight. He ends up in icy water, looking up at the steep bank. He remembers his Buck 110 folding hunting knife on his belt and uses it to dig into the slippery bank and pull himself to safety.