By WMBD-TV
TOWANDA – Being trapped inside a grain bin is a real-life nightmare scenario, but with yearly training, firefighters can be better prepared if a farming disaster were to happen in their communities.
Towanda, Gridley, Hudson, and Lexington firefighters gathered at the Towanda Fire Department to receive training from the National Education Center for Agricultural Safety (NECAS). The training was in two parts, a lecture presentation and a practice rescue situation.
The practice rescue situation involved one firefighter trapped in a grain bin, filled with grain up to their waist. Two other firefighters were tasked with rescuing him, which involved using a metal wall called a “rescue tube”. Then the trapped person held on to a pole and lifted themselves out of the grain.
Brian Lueschen is Towanda’s assistant fire chief and said that luckily the area hasn’t seen too many grain bin rescue operations. But it’s helpful to know how to perform a rescue operation.
“This is a tool that we would like to have in our toolbox that we hope we never have to use besides for training. It’s at least a tool we do have that if it does arise even in the communities around Towanda, we can use it,” he said.
He added that being engulfed in grain can happen as quickly as 15 seconds and that it can take hours to rescue someone.
The training was sponsored by Growmark and Nationwide, with Growmark representative Kevin Frye saying the equipment cost $6,000.
Frye added that the main reasons why grain bin entrapment can be so scary is because the grain can cause asphyxiation, and the pressure can hurt vital organs.
