Nate Quartier from Ormond Beach (FL) Quint 92 “B” sent in something they recently ran across in a local church. Crewmember Jim Peters noticed an odd looking piece of metal sitting on a table.

Upon giving it a closer look, they noticed it was actually a little drop bar for an exterior door. After some investigating they noticed all of the other exterior doors had they installed as well. The mini-bar (no, not that kind of mini-bar) simply drops into place on the lower knob-side corner of the door, and holds onto the inside of the frame.

The exterior of the door did reveal 2 small rivet heads for the bracket, however they might go unnoticed in the dark. They crew dropped the bar into place and began lightly “testing the door” and found it to be much more sturdy than it appears. Anyone good with the irons will still be able to get this door fairly easily, but it’ll put up some good resistance at the bottom. Removing the rivets by punching them through with the pike of the halligan might be a viable option.

Another thing to consider is if a crewmember encounters this supplemental lock from the inside while trying to make an escape of the building. What if the drop bar was padlocked to the bracket? Placing the halligan just to the right of the bracket and to the left of the “hook” that goes to the door, a clockwise twist should shear the bolts and defeat the lock. Or perhaps placing the halligan in the same spot and simply pulling back, using the halligan as a lever might be another viable option. We need to expect supplemental locks on every door, and be able to identify and visualize how to remove and defeat them, both from the outside and the inside. Just another reason why secondary means of egress should be established early in the incident, before they are ever needed.