Here’s how to escape a sinking car: Underwater expert

So, search teams were swimming through thousands of pounds of debris in pitch black water, very dangerous conditions. And when your car plunges into water, what do you do? And when you're rescuing people trapped in cars underwater, what are the variables? Douglas Bishops, an underwater search and recovery expert who finds cars and solves missing persons cases. When you now have a search and rescue mission underway and they've said that now there are going to be probably no survivors, are the lives of the rescue crew now at stake in these conditions? Absolutely. 100%. Anytime you involve a rescue operation or recovery operation and you have the different variables that upgrade the risk assessment and factors there on site, you have so many different things that are at play. The integrity of the environment, water, can't account for everything. Also, you have tons of unstable steel and concrete and so forth. These things drastically challenge any type of recovery whatsoever, let alone one of this magnitude. It's astronomical. The dangers involved when you have low visibility, current and so forth, I mean, it's really never ending. It's one of the most challenging recoveries that we've seen of late. My family, Doug, just bought one of those little hammers that you're supposed to use if your car does submerge in water. Right. Yes. You bang it. Is that what people do? Is that the only way to survive? How long does it take before it's too late? Seconds count. It happens way quicker than you could ever imagine. The most important thing to remember is to be prepared. When emergencies and accidents like this happen, they don't happen on a schedule. They happen in the blink of an eye when you least suspect it. Being prepared is the number one thing that you can do. Having a window breaker like we offer at UnitedSearchCorps.org is one of the most important steps in this. But if you don't have one and you find yourself in this situation, there's four letters that everyone needs to remember right now watching this. And that's S-W-C-O. And that's seatbelt, window, children, out. You got to take your seatbelt off first. You can't do anything. You can't save your life with your seatbelt on. You immediately, as soon as you can, you put the window down so your electronics don't fail and so that pressure doesn't prohibit your window from opening. So seatbelt, window, open your window, and children are first. You get to your children first. Once your children are out, then you are out. Because once you're out of a vehicle, you're not getting back into that vehicle to rescue anybody. So S-W-C-O, seatbelt, window, children, out. Seatbelt, window, children, out. Got it. Doug, thanks so much and thanks for your courage. And thanks for coming on Prime Time.