Emergency escape hatch

Claim 1

An escape hatch assembly to facilitate emergency exiting from a structure, comprising: a hatch main body; an exterior frame built into the structure; a recessed catch means formed in said exterior frame; a latch plate disposed in overlying relation to said recessed catch means; a hatch frame, for framing said hatch body, slideably and releasably received within said exterior frame; a latch means for interlocking said exterior frame and said hatch frame; said latch means being accessible from the inside only of said structure; said hatch main body and said hatch frame being slideably removable from said exterior frame when said latch means is unlocked; said hatch main body and said hatch frame being slideably removable from said exterior frame in a single direction only, said single direction being from inside of the structure to the outside of the structure; said latch means including a pair of pivotally mounted latch handle means that are laterally spaced apart from one another; each latch handle means of said pair of latch handle means including a handle, an axis, and a locking bolt; said handle, axis, and locking bolt being integrally formed with one another and being made of a substantially rigid but flexible and resilient material; each axis being disposed perpendicular to a plane of said main hatch body, and each handle and locking bolt being disposed parallel to said plane of said main hatch body; said latch plate including a circular opening, a horizontally elongated opening vertically spaced downwardly from said circular opening, and an elongate slot formed therebetween, said locking bolt traveling from said circular opening to said horizontally elongated opening as a handle is rotated about its axis; said elongate slot being canted so that as said locking bolt travels along said elongate slot from said circular opening to said horizontally elongated opening, said axis is displaced and places said locking bolt under a bias due to the resiliency of said axis; each locking bolt being disposed in its associated catch means when its associated handle means is in an unpivoted state and said locking bolt being disposed out of its associated catch means when its associated handle means is pivoted; and each locking bolt, urged by the bias created by the resiliency of its associated axis, being disposed in its associated horizontally elongated opening when its associated latch handle is rotated about its axis, said horizontally elongated opening holding said locking bolt therein under the bias of its associated axis so that said locking bolt cannot inadvertently re-enter said catch means after said handles have been pivoted.