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How Not to Become a Victim During Grain-Entrapment Rescues
Getting trapped inside a partially filled grain bin can be deadly. In the U.S. alone there were 35 entrapments involving bins in 2020, per Purdue University, 15 of which were fatal.1
All it takes to trap a victim is for them to sink to their knees in grain. In this situation the victim could be hauled out using a rope. But if they sink down to their chest, a rope rescue is out of the question: At that depth the weight of the grain pressing against the victim is equal to 800 lbs. upon their body. “If you attempt to pull them out, you’re likely to rip them apart,” says Nick Young, fire chief in the unincorporated rural community of Miniota, Manitoba, Canada.
It’s not just agricultural workers who get hurt during grain entrapments, says Robert Gobeil, an agricultural safety and health specialist with the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association (CASA). “According to statistics, two-thirds of people injured in grain-entrapment rescues are rescuers,” he tells EMS World. This is why CASA and other agricultural safety associations offer grain-entrapment rescue courses to first responders and the public. (CASA’s grain handling safety program is called ‘BeGrainSafe.’)
How Entrapments Occur
Grain entrapments can occur when grain stops flowing out of the bin during removal and someone decides to go inside to get it moving again.
In their optimal state, the individual pieces of grain stored inside the bin are dry and separate from each other. This allows the grain to flow using gravity when a door is opened at the bottom of the bin. However, if the grain was stored too wet or in excessively humidity, it can overheat and stick due to natural decomposition, which is known as going “out of condition.”
“When grain goes out of condition, it can harden on the surface and form bridges over air gaps or start to scale up the side walls of the bin inside,” says Gobeil. “It can also clump together under the surface, slowing the flow out of the bin.”
Here’s where the danger occurs: A worker sees the flow has slowed and enters the bin by themselves without any sort of safety harness to fix things. They step on the hardened surface, which fails under their weight. The worker sinks into the grain and becomes trapped.
“Flowing grain can act a lot like quicksand,” Gobeil says. “Once you start to sink into the grain, you can keep sinking for some time until you finally stop.”
If the worker kept a grain-removal augur running inside the bin when they went inside, the danger is magnified. Not only could more grain start to flow out beneath the worker, causing them to sink lower, but in the worst-case scenario, their feet and legs could get caught in the augur.
Safe Rescue Techniques
To help rescuers stay safe and effective, CASA has a training trailer configured like a bin that it takes to grain-farming communities like Miniota. Using this training bin under the guidance of Gobeil and other rescue professionals, first responders can learn the safest and most successful ways to rescue grain-entrapment victims.
“The right rescue process starts with the five W’s: who, what, where, when, and why,” says Gobeil. “You need to know who is trapped; what conditions they are tapped in and how they can be approached safely by rescuers; where the entrapment is; when it happened; and why it took place. With this information you can plan your rescue strategy in line with your level of rescue training.”
Here’s how responders rescue someone trapped in grain up to their chest: First the rescuers need to be wearing safety harnesses, with people holding their ropes and ready to pull them out at a moment’s notice. The rescuers can improve their ability to walk safely on the hardened grain by laying down plywood sheets or other horizontal surfaces to distribute their weight.
Next the rescuers need to fit a roped safety harness on the victim. This will keep them from sinking further and give rescuers a means to pull them out when the time is right.
This done, the rescuers must build a “cofferdam” around that person using insertable panels that slide vertically into the grain to create enclosing walls. This creates a separate zone around the victim that prevents the grain outside the cofferdam from flowing in.
Once the cofferdam is in place, the rescuers can remove the grain inside using an augur powered by a portable electric hand drill. This lowers the depth and weight of grain pressing against the victim. One the grain is below their knees, they can be safely extracted using appropriate rope-rescue techniques.
Another option is to remove the grain by cutting a hole in the bin (“bin breaching”) at ground level. Before this hole is cut, the rescuers and victim must be fitted and secured with their roped safety harnesses—otherwise they could all sink into the grain as it exits through the wall.
For first responders like the volunteer Miniota Fire Department, getting training from CASA is vital to rescuing grain-entrapment victims safely.
“Being that we live in grain-farming country, we need to be able to offer these kinds of rescues,” says Young. “I recommend this kind of training to anyone who may have to deal with people trapped in grain bins, which can happen in the country or city.”
Find grain-entrapment rescue courses in your area through Google. Find CASA’s program at www.casa-acsa.ca/en/begrainsafe.
Reference
1. GrainNet. Purdue University Report: Grain Bin Entrapments Fall 7.9% in 2020. GrainNet, 2021 Mar 25; www.grainnet.com/article/229517/purdue-university-report-grain-bin-entrapments-fall-7.9-in-2020.
James Careless is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to EMS World.
