Equipment available for grain bin rescues

Mandy Hammes of Packwood won $30,000 from the Iowa Lottery Aug. 5 and gave a portion of her winnings to the Richland Fire Department.

She donated a large share of the money to the fire department for a safety day demonstration of grain bin rescue equipment and training at Pekin High School last fall.

Grain bin safety is important to Hammes because she lost her father-in-law to a farming accident in January 2012. She started playing lottery games shortly thereafter in the hopes of winning a prize and donating it to the fire department. She is an registered nurse, certified in agricultural safety and is employed as a site nurse at Monsanto.

Hammes started Farm Awareness Community Training with Amanda Adam of Washington County to promote farm safety.

In 2009, Adam was involved in a farm accident in which she fell into a full manure pit 8 feet deep. She was submerged for more than a minute. Fortunately for Adam, Washington resident Randy Stalder was at the farm and pulled her out of the pit.

Hammes can be contacted for ag safety training, including grain bin safety, and accidents involving augurs, tractors and manure engulfment. Her cell phone is 515-460-0120.

?We plan to offer first aid safety training this summer to farmers? spouses,? she said. ?They are usually the first ones on the scene of an accident.

?I can help direct others to grants or help write grants for funding,? said Hammes.

Fairfield Fire Department Chief Scott Vaughan said he and 19 Fairfield firefighters took grain bin safety training in the fall, and rescue equipment is on order.

?We trained for grain bin rescues,? said Vaughan.

Equipment on order includes a rescue augur, a rescue paneled tube and a harness.

?The rescue tube has rungs on the outside of the panels so rescue personnel can step on the rungs and push the panels down around the person stuck in the grain,? said Vaughan. ?We have six milk crates which we?ve cut down and the rescue workers stand on these for platforms inside the grain bin to keep them from getting sucked down into the grain.

?As the panels get set up around the person stuck, an augur is used to pull the grain out of the rescue space, and the rescuers push the panels down until the person is free of the grain and can be pulled out by the harness. We also can use a diamond blade on a circular saw to cut a hole in the side of a grain bin and empty out some of the grain that way.?

Vaughan said it?s been some years since he worked on a grain bin rescue.

?It was a successful rescue, but it was using ropes and pulling, before the use of a rescue tube,? he said.

A couple more Fairfield firefighters have been trained in manure pit rescues.

Iowa State University Extension and Jefferson County 4-H offer training materials and demonstrations.

?We have a tug of war grain bin simulator,? said Courtney Taglauer, Jefferson County 4-H youth coordinator. ?It?s a metal, half-circle short bin and people tug on a rope outside it. A scale shows the amount of strength needed to pull a person stuck in grain. We had it set up on Fairfield?s square after the Kids? Day parade this year. It also will be on display and available to try on Kids? Day/Ag Safety Day June 27 at the Jefferson County Fair this summer. We?ll have different stations set up about farm safety. Anyone can use the simulator and explore the safety stations that day.?

Taglauer said the Extension service has printed material available online about agricultural safety topics at www-archive.abe.iastate.edu/safety/farm-safety-day-page.html.