2006 V50 Man & Dog die locked in car

Post by **kranz** » 11 Jun 2015, 08:56

I came across this incident where a man died locked inside his Corvette. He was unable to unlock the car manually:

Man & dog die

It made me wonder how I would deal with this situation in my 2006 V50. My car has electric locks and it is not clear to me how to open a locked door manually if the electronics fail. I don't see an obvious answer in the owners manual.

Is there an obvious answer that I am missing? Does anyone know the answer to this situation short of breaking a window?

Post by **regent** » 11 Jun 2015, 10:34

You can unlock and open a(ny) door from the inside by simply pulling the handle - it's a pure mechanical arrangement that does not need battery power.
I believe this is a failsafe/safety feature on our cars.
(Of course, there is that child safety lock on the rear doors I almost forgot about.)

db130 · Post by **db130** » 11 Jun 2015, 10:57

It's my understanding that on C6 Corvettes, there is an emergency door latch so that you can get out of the car when power from the battery is severed. The poor man apparently did not know about it.

Sommerfeldt · Post by **Sommerfeldt** » 11 Jun 2015, 11:01

This seems wildly improbably to me... I've been stuck outside my car, sure, but inside?! I don't think I've ever even heard of that before.
Like the article says, there's a manual release mechanism for the Corvette, and Volvos will simply unlock themselves - battery charge or no battery charge - if you use the inside handle. Even if you have the child safety lock on, there's still 2-3 doors you can use, depending on your model.

Also... first responders struggled to find a way into the car?! Last I checked, cars have something called windows. Or is that only on European models...?

- S