Grain Entrapment Concerns

Grain entrapment remains a serious and ongoing issue each year, leading to injuries and fatalities. Dave Newcomb, agriculture rescue program manager with the Illinois Fire Service Institute, trains first responders on ag safety rescue operations and how to recognize potential hazards.

“We average about 25 to 30 engulfments in the United States every year. And unfortunately, that number is going up. So that's an unfortunate thing. The other thing that might be interesting in this is that all of the people that got trapped in the bins here were all over the age of seven. 60% of the fatalities are people trying to save someone else, and then we have the high the majority, almost 50% of the incidents happen on the family farm. So you're going to have family members and everybody else trying to save their loved one.”

Newcomb explains how they rescue someone from a grain entrapment situation.

“We have two classes. We have an awareness level class that teaches the first responders what they can do on the outside of the bin if somebody's totally under the surface of the grain. One of the first things we do is we start cutting the bin open to drain the grain out to find them. If we have the situation where we go inside the bin to get them, then we use what's called a rescue tube, which is a metal or plastic device, and we go in and we put it around the patient, and then we use a small auger that runs off a drill. And we basically put that down around them and just pull the drain out from inside the tube. So basically, we got to uncover them.”

Dave Newcomb with the Illinois Fire Service Institute.