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| Training for Grain Bin Rescues |
What has become a seemingly growing problem in Illinois was one that area firefighters and first responders got the chance to tackle Saturday.
The Galesburg Fire Department's Hawthorne Centre Training Site played host to dozens of volunteers who took part in grain bin entrapment rescue training.
This, following incidents last year near the area which resulted in two teenagers being killed after they got trapped in a grain bin in Mount Carroll, and after a Geneseo man died after a similar accident there.
Bin Bility of the Michigan-based Safety and Technical Rescue Association conducted the training, and tells WGIL there are a number of ways an entrapment can happen.
"Some of the big common reasons why it's happening: out-of-condition grain that sticks up on the side walls, and just the shear amount of more storage," Billity said.
Bility tells WGIL that means it's incumbent on the agricultural community to make sure they store grain and work with it as safely as possible.
"Do things property whenever you have to enter a bin," Billity said. "This is the dangerout point. You're required to have a safety harness on, attacked to a line, to a high anchor point, and someone else there to alert rescuers in case you come into an emergency."
The Knox County Farm Bureau hosted the training, after its Young Farmers organization raised over $20,000 that helped purchase plastic tubes that can be inserted into a grain bin, essentially giving rescuers a clear pathway that will help rescue someone trapped.
(Both Photos: Local fire departments participate in a simulation of a grain entrapment rescue operation Saturday at the Galesburg Fire Department Hawthorne Centre training site. WGIL News Story and Photos by Will Stevenson.) |
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| 03 19 11 by Newsroom |
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