Eastern Iowa Farmer Spring 2021

grain bin safety
Chad saw rescue tubes, or coffer dams,
become standard issue for rural fire departments.
He worked as a regional manager
for River Valley Coop when the coop
was donating grain bin rescue equipment
to small fire departments in the area.
“Now, we can actually get people out,
instead of hoping to get them out,” Chad
said.
Petersen’s rescue wasn’t the first grain
bin extraction for Lost Nation firefighters,
either. Several years ago, they cleared a
man from an entrapment near the side of
the bin, a challenging situation that didn’t
go quite as easily as planned, said former
Lost Nation fire chief Bill Brauer.
Training in Eastern Iowa
The National Education Center for Agricultural
Safety at Northeast Iowa Community
College in Peosta has held grain
bin safety trainings in 28 states, donating
57 grain bin rescue tubes this year alone.
They train these departments free of cost,
said NECAS director Dan Neenan.
Twenty-three of the departments that
have received NECAS tubes have gone
on to successfully
rescue farmers
from grain bins,
Neenan said.
NECAS now
has two training
trailers, where
responders can
learn in a real-life
scenario in which
a volunteer is partially
submerged in
Dan Neenan, corn. Amazingly,
National Education Neenan said, they
Center for Agriculture always have volunteers
ready to jump
Safety Director
in to the grain.
Rescue procedures continue to evolve.
For example, rescuers used to use a shopvac
to remove grain, but that can cause
dangerous sparks. A cordless, brushless
drill is safer.
Neenan also suggested that farmers
should watch for low-oxygen conditions
and carbon monoxide. If getting in a bin,
wear a properly-fitting harness, such as
those available at farm stores.
The big picture
Ten years ago, two teens died and
another was injured in a grain bin accident
in nearby Carroll County, Illinois,
just across the Mississippi River. The
boys’ employer, Haasbach, was found to
have violated child labor laws and more
than two dozen Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (OSHA) rules in
the lead-up to the teens’ deaths.
According to Purdue University’s Agricultural
Safety and Health Program, 37
grain bin entrapments occurred nationwide
in 2019, of which 23 were fatal. In
2018, Purdue’s program reported 30 grain
bin entrapments.
Regarding his late summer accident,
Bob said he should have known to be
more careful. After all, he lost a relative
in a grain bin accident about a decade
ago.
As the grain draws off the middle, it’s
“like a sand hill,” Bob said.
Margie pointed out that their neighbors
and friends are more likely to die
Farm Bureau
Ag in the Classroom
Providing Ag Education to Students in Clinton
and Jackson Counties
eifarmer.com spring 2021 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 25