Tool for opening a pressure cooker

Claim 1

A manually operable hand tool for causing the lid of a pressure cooker to rotate with respect to the underlying vessel of said pressure cooker, and adapted to engage the vertical sides of vertically aligned handles of said lid and vessel, said tool comprising a handle portion elongated about a center axis, and a gripping head disposed at one extremity of said handle portion as a continuous integral extension thereof, said gripping head being of bifurcated configuration and comprised of an arcuately shaped spanning member having first and second extremities and defining an engulfing area, a forward abutment site and a rearward abutment site disposed in facing relationship adjacent said first and second extremities, respectively, said engulfing area extending above said forward abutment site and rearward of said rearward abutment site, and an upper abutment site located on said spanning member within said engulfing area, whereby placement of said tool over the aligned handles of said pressure cooker in a manner such that an upper edge of the lid handle contacts said upper abutment site causes said forward abutment site to contact a vertical side of said lid handle and said rearward abutment site to contact an opposite vertical side of the underlying vessel handle, and subsequent downward motion of said handle portion applies a concerted pushing force to said vessel and pulling force to said lid.