The background: A family member took a job which requires him to spend a lot of time waiting at the local motor vehicles department. Surprisingly, the waiting area where he will be spending time is on an upper floor and the room is only accessible by elevator. There is a door leaving the room which requires a pass card to get through.
Needless to say, my nephew is a bit concerned about what to do if he needs to leave the room in a hurry, for example if somebody were to pull out a gun and start shooting. Since the exit door has a glass window, his plan is to break the glass; reach through; open the door; and make his escape.
So the question is this: Is there any innocuous tool he can carry around which will let him quickly and safely break a glass window in a hurry? How would he go about using it?
Could keep a small piece of ceramic from a spark plug around. Works on tempered glass. Amazing how well it works. You can youtube it for demonstrations.
I presume that he isn’t working for the DMV, because then he’d have a pass-card. If something happens, won’t the employees be fleeing too, so he can just “coat-tail” through the door behind them?!
It would depend on the type of glass. lieu’s answer will work for plain plate or tempered glass. Given that the door is locked all the time, it would not be surprising if wire-reinforced or laminated safety glass was being used. In that case, it could still be broken using such a tool, but getting a hole large enough to put your arm through safely might prove difficult.
Frankly, it is a bit shocking to me that a public facility like that would not have an emergency exit.
The employees generally don’t hang out in the waiting room. In fact, that’s why the door is kept locked – so that the general public can’t easily get into the employee area. Which makes things safer for the employees but not so much for the public.
How can one (non-destructively) tell the difference?
In that case, what would you suggest?
Yes, it is shocking to me too. Probably there is an evacuation plan which says that the door will automatically unlock if a fire alarm goes off. Or that the guard will unlock the door in an emergency. But who wants to depend on that?
Anything pointy can be surprisingly good at breaking glass. Put the tip of a knife or a screwdriver against it and smack it. The glass breaking tools are surely better, but if he loses it, he should grab the closest pointy thing instead of giving up.
I’m skeptical that it will work though. How thick is the glass? Does it have wire mesh in it? Is it tinted? These could make it harder to simply pop and reach through.
Why does he think this is likely to happen? I know it’s the DMV, but there’s a remarkably low homicide rate at the DMV considering how much it inspires murderous desires. Sounds to me like he’s thinking of excuses to quit the boring job. Is he working as a runner for a car dealer or something like that?
That sounds like a fire code violation. Is he sure there is no other exit? What if there’s a fire? You’re not supposed to use the elevator when there’s a fire.
I carry one of thesein my truck, but thismight be more appropriate in a building where weapons may be prohibited.
Of course, I carry thisin my truck as well, but it scares my wife. It’s mounted in the tailgate, and she always thinks it’s going to fall and kill her as she loads groceries! It’s only 24 inches long; she won’t let me keep a full-sized Halligan bar in back.:mad:
Yeah - I had the same thought. Beyond that, nothing to add to the OP’s question beyond that whatever the guy does to break the glass, he should use his shirt or something to protect his arm when he reaches through to open the door.
Any door glass and the glass in a window at a level where someone might accidentally trip and fall against should be tempered glass. An example of windows that should be tempered are those in stairwells and the windows next to a doorway and all entry doors.
Tempered glass is up to 7 times stronger than normal window glass and can be very hard to break. You can even hit it with a baseball bat and not break it. Think of tempered glass as if the outside skin were shrunk slightly and holding the inside under great pressure. Once the outside skin is broken the inside crumbles.
Tempered glass is weakest at the edge of the pane. When I worked at a window shop we had to be very careful where we sat the glass down, usually on soft wood blocks. Setting the edge on even a small piece of gravel or a nail could make the whole thing go ‘spung!’ and end up in little kernals.
You need something sharp to breach the ‘skin’ of tempered glass. Something hard and pointy. If you are in a car that in sinking in the water, or behind a door or in another emergency situation, hit the glass with the sharpest object you have available. If all you have is your bare hands, grasp your car keys and punch.
Heh. That reminds me of when I managed a SCIF. The local FD wanted to inspect the new construction we’d done.
Us: You can’t, it’s classified.
Them: You have to let us, it’s a safety hazard.
Us: You can’t, it’s classified.
Rinse and repeat ad nauseum. Ultimately, they took our word that we had a way for people to pop open the door to get out (assuming, of course, that it wasn’t the room into which they’d egress that was on fire - then they’d be screwed).