Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

My wife wanted me to order some of these as stocking stuffers for friends and family. We live in area with alot of big lakes and rivers, so it makes sense to have a safety device like this in every car. While noticing that several reviewers had problems with them not working, I was tempted to go for the larger LifeHammer instead. I would feel terrible if someone was relying on a gift from me to save their life, and have it fail when that time came (God forbid!) I took my chances and ordered 8 ResQme keychains (4 Blue, 4 Yellow.) All arrived quickly in usual Amazon fashion. I found a scrap piece of soft wood and proceeded to test them out. Of the 8, only 1 (yellow) failed to "strike" the wood and leave an impression from the steel point. However, after cycling the device 5 or 6 more times, it began to strike the wood and leave an impression in the wood. After 10 or so additional tests, I was unable to get the device to fail again. My guess is that there was some plastic "flashing" inside from the injection molding process that was slowing down or stopping that striker from firing properly (based upon a small, thin piece of yellow plastic being left on the wood after the 5 cycles preceding the device starting to work properly.) So, if you get one that does not work, try cycling it many times and see if that fixes it before going through the return process. ** I STRONGLY recommend testing this or any other device you may some day rely on with your life. The chances of needing to use this are remote, but please make sure that it works in the event that day arrives. While I would certainly have preferred that all of the devices worked upon delivery, the end result is that they were all working in short order, and I feel comfortable giving them as gifts to people that I care about. The 4 stars in because the factory should be testing these before shipping them out the door...