By Art Hovey
The Lincoln Journal Star
GRANT, Neb. — Don Softley was back at his banking job in Grant on Wednesday, but the images of a few days ago still were fresh in his mind.
A hired hand on a farm 12 miles from town had become trapped in corn up to his neck inside a steel bin after an auger plugged during unloading.
Softley and about 30 others from four volunteer rescue squads raced to the scene.
Then they began to operate in a much more controlled manner to accomplish the delicate task of getting the 25-year-old out of a quicksandlike setting.
“We got a couple of people secured in harnesses and ropes,” the Grant fire chief said, “and we got them down to him and we got him oxygen, for one thing.
“Then we began to cut holes in V-formation in exact time at equal and opposite ends of the bin.”
Local rescue squads train for these sorts of agricultural emergencies - and this life was saved - but that doesn’t mean matters are resolved easily.
Thousands of bushels typically have to be dumped on the ground in a way that avoids bringing down an avalanche of corn on top of a victim buried at the bottom of what amounts to an inverted cone.
That means the upper edges of the cone have to be lowered evenly and gradually through the holes sawed in corrugated steel.
This extrication in Perkins County took more than three hours, Softley said.
There’s a message in a near tragedy for others hurrying to get unusually wet corn from the 2009 harvest out of storage before it spoils - and before they have to devote themselves exclusively to the 2010 planting season.
The message, said Chuck Hoffman, manager of the training division for the state Fire Marshal’s Office, is to slow down. Stop and think. And especially now.
“I would say this particular year, this spring, would be more conducive to producing the elements for grain going out of condition and producing an environment that would cause caking and bridging of grain,” Hoffman said.
Pat Ptacek of the Nebraska Grain and Feed Association and Dave Morgan, veteran farm-safety specialist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, were quick to agree.
“We’re concerned about it, because of increased reports we’ve seen on engulfment issues,” Ptacek said.
Wet kernels aren’t the only problem, Morgan said.
“If it’s wet, it gets moldy. And if it gets moldy, it will crust up and you can get voids when you try to empty the bin.”
That means air pockets and a false bottom can be waiting for anybody who climbs down inside a bin to clear a clog.
Morgan suggested sliding a long pole through the entry port at the top of the bin to do the job. Banging on the bin walls with a rubber hammer might work.
Augers, which can cut off arms and legs, should always be shut off and locked down first, Hoffman said. And under no circumstances should people work alone to fix the problem.
“We teach that no one should ever enter a confined space - regardless of whether they have a harness or a line or whatever - if they’re alone,” Hoffman said.
“This should only be done in a team concept situation.”
The Grant episode ended with sighs of relief because a second person used a safety rope to get down in the bin and the same rope to climb out and summon help.
But Fire Chief Softley spoke of an earlier incident when the second person arrived on the scene unaware of a problem inside the bin. He restarted the auger and the person inside the bin lost both arms.
Hoffman, a farmer himself and a member of a rescue team earlier in life, responded to three entrapments during that time.
Two were successful. The third was not.
That third victim, working alone, disappeared under the corn at mid-morning. No one even knew what happened until he failed to show up for lunch.
“First of all,” Hoffman said, “you need to think safety and follow a set of guidelines, regardless of whether you’re in a hurry, or if you think you can do this safely or not.”
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