Grain bin safety
Harvest is on the horizon, and so is the potential for accidentsBy ALEX SCHUMAN, Messenger staff writer
Article Photos
As harvest time approaches, those amber waves of grain will be cut down and stored in grain bins. But rarely does the mental picture of sweeping fields include a vision of death.
Unfortunately, safety measures coinciding with the storage of harvested grain are frequently overlooked .
''You have to pay attention to what you're doing,'' said Murray Madsen, associate director of the Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health and Safety, a branch of the University of Iowa's Oakdale research campus.
According to Iowa State University Extension Safety Specialist Charles Schwab, suffocation and entrapment cause the most death.
''It takes hours to rescue someone from grain,'' he said.
He stressed the importance of understanding the situation when dealing with grain storage.
''Never enter a bin you don't know the unloading history of,'' Schwab said.
Between the years of 1964 and 1994, there were 130 suffocation deaths in Iowa, Nebraska and Indiana, a large portion of the 206 nationwide, Schwab said.
''Some of (the deaths) might happen, but we don't hear about them,'' he said.
Madsen said there are some problems in the gathering of grain bin fatalities. Most of the information is received through media outlets, he said.
Schwab said private grain bin deaths aren't reported as regularly as commercial bin deaths.
''If it's a cooperative, it's much different from private,'' Madsen said.
Dennis Knight, safety and loss control manager for NEW Cooperative Inc., describes what it does to prevent fatalities.
''We understand what everybody's job is,'' he said. ''Communication is the big thing between the people on the inside and the outside.''
''We try to work and train as much as possible, but we're susceptible to human error,'' he said. ''You want to hope everything goes fine, but still things can happen.''
Lock Out Tag Out is a prevention method where an employee padlocks a piece of machinery in an off position and only that employee has a key. This keeps machinery from being turned on while someone is in the bin.
He tells employees deciding whether or not to use Lock Out Tag Out is comparable to playing the lottery. The difference, Knight said, is that ''if you lose you die.''
He said he is always reminding employees about the importance of safety.
''Are you willing to bet your own and your coworker's life that it's safe?'' he said. ''If you're doing everything correctly, there should be no way you get killed.''
The use of harnesses is another precaution that can be taken, but Knight explained harnesses are not always the safest route.
He said in some situations, such as when machinery is operating, the risk of a safety wire getting caught in the machine proves too dangerous. His gave as an example a scenario where an individual working with a harness gets his strap stuck in a sweeping auger.
''Safety equipment is more of a hazard (in those situations),'' he said.
Knight talks to all the employees about safety and said he knows it's not the most exciting subject, but it is always the most important.
Contact Alex Schuman at (515) 573-2141 or aschuman@messengernews.net
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jordansmama
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08-02-08 11:36 AM
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Considering I just lost a good friend to a grain bin accident less than 2 weeks ago, this article isn't taken lightly. I know there are certain precautions to take and risks involved in working on a job like that. It's a*****shame when it comes to such a thing as somone losing there life to an "accident" on the job. I hope the family get's justice to the "mistake" or "accident" that happened to my friend. Not saying anyone was at fault, but I just hope that everything happened, happened as pure accident. R.I.P. Sk8ter Matt!!!
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