Grain bin accidents are one of the most unfortunate incidents in all agriculture. New information from the University of Illinois shows that many of the people who are injured or killed in the incidents are people who attempted to rescue the trapped individual. Dave Newcomb, the ag rescue program manager for the Illinois Fire Service, calls them “rogue rescues.”
“Over 50 percent happen on the family farm. So, what’s going to happen? A brother, uncle, sister, nephew, hired hand, whoever’s in the bin, they get in trouble. Our first reaction is we want to jump in and save them. And unfortunately, 60 percent of the people who are trying to save someone else end up being a fatality themselves. It’s hard to press, but you know we talked about that attendant a little bit ago. If you see it happening, don’t go in the bin because, once again, 60 percent of the people trying to save someone else end up being a fatality.”
Not only is the grain dangerous, but the air itself can present problems.
“Another contributing factor in this is that air quality. 90 percent of the people who have died in a bin is because of air quality. I had a gentleman once I was talking to who had been trapped in a bin, and he said they kept bringing this machine in to test the air. He says if I’m talking to you, the air’s okay. I said no, not necessarily. So, because, once again, most bin incidents happen when the grain goes out of condition, it starts to rot, and it’s creating other products like CO2 and other things that replace the oxygen, so that you are walking into something you can’t see. So, for the rescuers, for us, we monitor the air quality as soon as we get there. When we’re doing the rescue, we will monitor it at the opening where they’re going in. The rescuers will have a second monitor with them where they’re working at the patient, and we record these readings every 15 minutes for our own safety.”
He offered a case from Mount Carroll, Illinois, as a tragic example. Three workers became buried in corn while walking the grain inside a bin. Rescuers had to cut holes in the bin’s sides to drain the corn. One worker was saved, but a 14-year-old and 19-year-old tragically suffocated in 2010.
“That incident was what actually brought grain bin rescue to the forefront. On that day, that incident started at about 10 o’clock in the morning, and the last victim was taken out of the bin about midnight. Rough numbers: 267 responders and five technical rescue teams. And it happened in late July, so they were dealing with heat issues for everybody.”
One of the three became trapped, and the other two attempted a rescue, with all three eventually getting caught in the corn while the machinery was still running.
For more information on grain bin rescue operations, go to fsi.illinois.edu.