Dan Daly from Chicago Fire Department sent in his method of carrying an easily accessible knife. His set-up utilizes a river (or dive) style of knife that is attached to his flashlight with zip ties. Dan rides this light/knife assembly on the chest of his turnout coat. This location ensures the knife is easy to get to at all times. This style knife comes with a hard plastic sheath that locks the knife in place, while still allowing it to be removed with ease. This style knife has one sharp blade, a dull edge, and a dull point that can be used as a small pry bar or even a shove knife. One nice thing about a fixed blade knife is that it is easy to operate with a gloved hand. We have shown a number of cutter ideas here on VentEenterSearch over the years but have not featured many knife set-ups. Knifes and cutters are both great tools to have, they each have a number of different uses an limitations and should both be considered in your personal tool selection.
I too have a setup like that and I would just caution folks to pay attention to the ‘quality’ of the sheath, as it may warp and/or with ANY temp. fluctuation (hot and cold) resulting in a lost knife/ tool or worse… possible injury. CRKT; Benchmade (my personal choice); SOG; Glas-Master; and Kershaw are all top quality blades and all have great ‘quality’ sheaths. They do however come with a ‘high quality’ price, so whatever you wanna pay. From a TRT/ rope rescue standpoint, you can mount a similar ‘rig’ to the shoulder strap on most Class III harnesses. Substitute the zipties for MOLLE clips. This will give you easy access to your knife/ multitool from any angle. Strong work Dan! Stay Safe!
Hey would it be possible to identify the knife that Firefighter Daly attached to his light, I love the idea and it looks like the perfect size for the application.
Stephen,
Check out the very next post for more info. on the knife.
http://www.vententersearch.com/?p=1512
Loved this idea and have adopted it for my own use. The knife I went with is the NRS Pilot its super sharp out of the box and the sheath locks the knife in good an tight. Yet still very easy to access with structure or extrication gloves.
http://www.nrsweb.com/shop/product.asp?pfid=2755
he is using a gerber water/river knife.