“We acknowledge that reality television aims to entertain, but it is crucial that such portrayals do not inadvertently glamorize or normalize serious risks,” said Andrea Lear, CASA’s Chief Executive Officer in a news release yesterday. “We urge media producers to consult with safety experts and consider the real-life consequences of their depicted tasks.”

In fifth episode of the show’s current season, contestants are made to climb into grain trailers that are anywhere from two-thirds to three-quarters of the way full of oats. They then had to dig through the grain to find a hidden object.

Contestants were shown wading and digging through the grain for a prolonged period.

“It’s pretty deep,” a contestant said at one point.

CASA pointed out that wading in deep grain could lead to become partially or fully engulfed in grain, which can have deadly consequences. Between 2011 and 2020, 27 people died due to asphyxiation in grain or soil, the organization said.

In 2015, three children died while playing on a truck loaded with canola. According to a CBC article from the time, the girls fell into the back of the truck and suffocated after they became buried in the canola.

Since 2017, CASA has been working to raise awareness of the dangers of grain entrapment and has trained firefighters on how to rescue people trapped in grain.

In its first season, The Amazing Race Canada had contestants perform a similar task in which they searched through trailers full of lentils.

The post CASA calls out The Amazing Race Canada for agricultural stunt appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

For Randy Froese, that day is Aug. 17, 2010.

“That’s the day I just about did not make it home,” said the grain farmer from Winkler, Man.

That morning started like any other. Froese decided it was finally time to do something about the pinto beans harvested the previous fall. The beans had come off wet, so the farm crew put six tandem loads into a hopper bin with a rocket aeration system and figured they would deal with the frozen beans in spring.

Come spring, about four truckloads were removed, but a thick 18-inch layer of mouldy beans remained, clinging to the side of the bin. The aeration was left on in hopes they would fall in on their own. They didn’t.

So that day in August, Froese decided to go into the bin. Alongside one of his employees, he descended the ladder and started chiselling away at the beans, while two other employees waited outside just in case.

That ‘just in case’ came quickly.

“We weren’t in there very long when about a third of the material let go,” said Froese.

His employee managed to get behind the rocket aeration system, but falling debris hit Froese in the leg, trapping him in a sitting position with his leg wrapped around one of the stanchions holding up the unit.

“With that, I was buried up to my chest, and not seconds later, another part of the wall let go, and before I knew it, I was buried two to three feet under material.”

A desperate situation

Froese was trapped, helpless, and all he could hear was his employee panicking.

“I could hear everything going on, but I couldn’t do anything,” he said. “For the five to 10 minutes I was completely under, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t yell. I had to sit there trying to take in any air I could get.

“But I had to remain calm. I had taken my first aid courses and I knew that if I panicked or passed out from the pain, my chances of surviving were not going to be great.”

And the pain was “excruciating” as his knee bent at a 90-degree angle around the stanchion and the weight of the beans compressed him from all sides.

“At this point, I was sitting there thinking, ‘I’m not going home today. I’m not going to see my wife. I’m not going to see my daughter,’” he said. “I really reflected on everything in that short period of time.”

It took about 10 minutes of digging before the employee who was in the bin with him was able to find Froese under the beans.

“I could feel that they had finally found where I was, and they dug me out until I had my face clear,” he said. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘I’ve got a chance. I might get out of here.’”

Outside the bin, the employees called 911 and Froese’s father, who was back at the farm. With sirens wailing in the distance and time of the essence, Froese’s father joined the rescue mission, and he and another employee descended into the bin to help dig Froese out.

“Everything was collapsing in again,” he said. “It got to the point where I was buried again up to my waist. We knew we had to get me out. It was now or never.”

What Froese didn’t realize — and what his rescuers knew all too well — was that there was still a third of the beans clinging to the wall, ready to fall at any moment. With one final heave, the men pulled Froese free and immediately moved to the other side of the bin.

Seconds later, the rest of the beans let go.

“I likely would have been completely buried, along with one of my employees,” he said. “It was like God’s hand was on the bin, like He placed it up there and said, ‘No, this isn’t going to fall until you’re out of the way.’

“We just sat on the beans and we cried.”

Grain entrapment plans

Froese shared his harrowing experience during recent online screenings for the movie “SILO,” a 2019 film in which a teen entrapped in grain is the central dramatic event.

“Hearing from a real farmer who was fortunate to survive an entrapment makes the situation more real than a movie,” said Rick Taillieu, manager of grower relations and extension at Alberta Canola. “Farmers have and always will learn from each other, and we hope Randy’s story helps prevent a future tragedy.”

Sadly, Froese’s experience is still an all-too-common one on Canadian farms, said Rob Gobeil of the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association (CASA).

“Every year across Canada, we’re averaging between six and eight fatalities from grain entrapment,” Gobeil said during a Q-and-A session, hosted by several canola groups in support of CASA’s BeGrainSafe program.

Most farmers don’t realize how dangerous flowing grain is until it’s too late — and too late comes very quickly, he said.

“When grain is flowing, it behaves much like quicksand,” said Gobeil. “It takes between three and five seconds to become trapped in flowing grain, and once you’re trapped in grain, you’re helpless.”

Once the grain is past your knees, the odds of getting out without a rescue are “pretty slim,” he added.

“The deeper you go, the far less likely you are to get out on your own. It just stresses the importance of having that (entrapment emergency) plan.”

But most farmers don’t have such a plan, Gobeil added.

“If you do have to enter a confined space — and a grain bin is a confined space — you need, by law, to have procedures in place, and you need to have trained people,” he said.

“You need to have that process in place to make sure people come out in one piece. We all want to go to bed in the same shape we woke up in that day.”

BeGrainSafe training

That was the situation on Froese’s farm. None of the employees were trained to deal with an entrapment — and at the time, neither were the first responders on the scene.

That’s a common problem in small rural fire departments, one that the BeGrainSafe program is trying to remedy, said Taillieu. Since 2017, more than 500 firefighters from more than 30 fire departments across Western Canada have received the training.

“That’s a big part of why we wanted to do this training — to try and make sure there are more rural fire departments aware of what to do in this situation,” he said.

In the end, it took one hour to get Froese out of the bin, limping up the ladder toward the small opening of light. A bucket truck was waiting for him at the top, and though the ride to the hospital was a short one, his road to recovery was much longer.

Froese spent over a week in the hospital and many months recovering at home from the accident.

The impacts of that day will stay with him forever.

“It’s what I call God’s miracle in my life,” he said. “For me, it was a good time to realize that life is more than just working. We work, we work, we work. It’s easy to do that and we get caught up in it as life flies by.

“But we need to prioritize our time with our families.”

Froese hopes telling his story will help other farmers avoid the same fate.

“I pray that this story helps remind people that it can happen to anybody,” he said. “I didn’t think it was going to happen to me. I didn’t wake up that day thinking I wasn’t going to come home.”

The post A routine day, a near tragedy that will never be forgotten appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Select fire departments located near G3’s new grain elevators in the Carmangay, Irricana, Morinville, Stettler County, Wetaskiwin and Vermilion areas will be trained before receiving the rescue equipment. Sturgeon County Emergency Services, near G3 Morinville, received the BeGrainSafe training in August.

G3 is a supporter of the association’s BeGrainSafe program since 2016 and this marks the company’s second large donation of GSI RES-Q-TUBE and a Haul-ALL pencil auger from G3 to rural fire departments on the Prairies. In 2018, G3 donated grain rescue gear to 10 Saskatchewan fire departments as a part of its partnership with CASA. The grain rescue tube creates a barrier between the victim and the grain, while the auger helps rescuers quickly move the grain away.

With the donation of this equipment, these fire departments will now have the necessary tools to successfully and safely perform a rescue, said Robert Gobeil, agricultural health and safety specialist with CASA.

“Fire departments need the proper tools and training to successfully perform a grain rescue,” said Gobeil. “Thanks to G3, even more fire departments will be equipped with this rescue equipment.”

The post Rural Alberta fire departments get grain rescue equipment appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

That was the case on Nov. 4 in Leamington, Ont. when grain rescue training, the proper equipment, and teamwork all combined to save the life of a 14-year-old girl trapped in corn.

It was just a regular fall day in Canada’s tomato capital — which is also home to many corn and soybean farms — when a young teenager entered a gravity wagon filled with corn and quickly became entrapped.

“It was approximately 4 p.m. when a call for firefighter services came in. There had been an incident involving a gravity wagon and a young teenager,” said Mike Ciacelli, Leamington’s deputy fire chief. “She had been watching the corn unloading when she went in. As soon as she screamed, her family and the other workers knew she was in trouble.”

The people on site stopped the flowing corn and immediately called 911. When the call came in, Ciacelli said he immediately thought of his colleague, fire inspector Derrick Clark because Clark had just attended BeGrainSafe Firefighter Grain Rescue Training Course — a program developed by the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association.

“I called Derrick immediately,” recalled Ciacelli. “I knew he had taken the BeGrainSafe training, so I wanted his advice.

“I was harvesting corn at the time when Mike called,” said Clark. “And I knew that the best bet for a successful rescue was to secure the proper equipment to get her out safely.”

When Ciacelli arrived on the scene, the girl was mostly under the corn.

“All I could see were her eyes, her nose, and the tip of one of her elbows popping out of the corn.”

Someone suggested opening the door to get the corn moving again. However, after talking with Clark, Ciacelli knew this wasn’t an option.

“She was stable. EMS had managed to get her an airway, she was conscious, and a family member was pushing corn away from her face, so I knew we had the time to get the proper equipment there.”

A call went out to a neighbouring fire department, which had obtained a silo kit 10 or 12 years earlier but had never used it in “a live scenario,” said Ciacelli.

Clark suggested that while waiting for the silo kit to arrive, Leamington firefighters start to build a temporary cofferdam (a restraining wall) around the girl using what they had on hand to keep any more corn from flowing in on her.

“We started pulling boards and even old honey and fruit stand signs to use,” recalled Ciacelli.

When the Kingsville Fire Department’s technical rescue team arrived with the silo kit, they started building a cofferdam around her with their panels.

“She was up against the side of the grain cart,” says Ciacelli. “They could only do a half-moon shape around her. Because of the bars in the grain cart, the cofferdam panels weren’t exactly lining up. We ended up using the boards and signs to help fill the gaps.”

With a cofferdam in place, an aerial truck lit up the scene while firefighters used small pails to remove the corn from around the girl.

“All in all, 24 firefighters, four police officers, and two paramedics attended the scene. It was quite the light show,” said Ciacelli.

After about 45 minutes, firefighters removed enough corn to pull the girl out safely.

“I was amazed,” said Ciacelli. “She climbed down the ladder on her own. She went to the hospital, but she was fine. It was a good day.”

He now hopes more firefighters in the area take the BeGrainSafe training.

“I was happy to be able to call Derrick for his advice.”

“The training taught me how quickly grain entrapment happens,” added Clark. “Remaining calm, shutting down the equipment, and getting the rescue equipment can make all the difference.”

For more information, see casa-acsa.ca/begrainsafe.

The post It was just an average day during harvest — and then there was a scream appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

A routine entry into a bin to shovel some resistant grain can become deadly in a matter of seconds if the auger — and thus the flow rate — stays active.

“One of the main things we need to realize about grain handling is that flowing grain behaves like quicksand,” said Robert Gobeil, a grain bin safety expert.

“It only takes a few seconds to sink past your knees — and once you’re past your knees at the grain level you’re basically trapped. You cannot self-extract and get out on your own.”

The survival rate when trapped in grain is extremely poor — it’s estimated the fatality rate is 90 to 95 per cent.

But the risks of entrapment can be easily minimized. And that starts by not working alone.

“One of the most basic things producers can do is have an attendant standing on the outside of the bin who can power down and lock out equipment so it can’t accidentally be turned back on during the rescue process,” said Gobeil, an agricultural health and safety specialist with the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association.

The danger

Augers help create the quicksand effect — one moving 100 bushels a minute only takes a second or two to move a human-sized volume of grain.

Another major cause of grain entrapment is poor aeration in the bin, said Gobeil.

“When grain is out of condition it tends to crust up and create a bridge across the surface — usually about a four-inch-thick layer. So when you run your flow systems you can create a void below the grain. When someone goes on top of this bridged, crusted material, they can get trapped.”

(The Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute has done extensive research on grain conditioning. For more information, visit www.pami.ca and enter “aeration” in the search box.

Although intended to prevent falls, harnesses specifically designed for grain bins can prevent someone from sinking into the grain vortex. But many older bins do not have the anchor points necessary to secure the harness — at least against a fall. However, if you’re using the harness primarily to prevent sinkage (which puts less pressure on anchor points), there is some room for improvisation.

“Farmers are pretty crafty guys,” said Gobeil. “They can easily find an adequate anchor point to create a fall restraint system.”

‘It won’t happen to me’

For the past two years his association has been taking its BeGrainSafe mobile unit (which demonstrates how quickly a person can become entrapped) to trade shows, exhibitions and other farm events.

“A lot of people are really surprised how quickly an entrapment can occur,” said Gobeil. “They have a lot of stories about how they used to play in grain when they were kids or go into the grain bin and shovel to clear up augers.”

But others are harder to reach.

“At the other end of the spectrum we have a lot of people who have the ‘It won’t happen to me’ mentality. A lot of the ones with that mentality are typically the more experienced producers. They’re aware of the dangers, of course, but they have not had it happen to them yet.”

Grain bin manufacturer GSI has come up with a self-emptying grain bin system that uses inflatable liners to essentially push the grain towards the auger.

The company claims the system can clear out almost 100 per cent of the contents of a flat-bottom grain bin without manual labour or use of a sweep auger.

Using automatic touch screen control, the system inflates one of two liners — one for each half of the bin — which gently push grain towards the centre of the bin and the auger. The process is then repeated on the other half of the bin.

Some producers ask how susceptible the liners are to breakage from inflation or mouse activity, said Jonathan Waits with GSI’s head office in Illinois.

“The system works using very little air pressure – you’re looking at less than one psi throughout the entire process,” he said. “There’s enough capacity in our blower system to overcome most holes in the liners so you still have the air pressure needed to empty the remaining grain.

“Once you’re done with that process you can clean and patch the liners. They are easily fixed — you just clean them off and it’s a simple glue patch to fix any holes.”

“It looks like quite the interesting system and would definitely be a step in the right direction,” said Gobeil. “If we can reduce the frequency of people going into bins in general it’s that much less likely for an entrapment to occur.”

The post Don’t get trapped — bring a buddy when unloading grain from bins appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

And for the fire department in Clearwater County, it’s a premise that’s not only valued but also practised.

“Whenever we get an opportunity to educate and engage with the public as a fire department, we always take it because it is our one opportunity where we get to be proactive,” said Evan Stewart, assistant fire chief for the Clearwater Regional Fire Rescue Services, which serves 22,000 square kilometres in west-central Alberta.

Much of the area consists of agricultural land, so one of the fire department’s latest public outreach campaigns focused on the risks of grain entrapment. This past summer, the fire department made use of the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association’s BeGrainSafe program. It provided firefighters with training on how to safely orchestrate a grain entrapment rescue using simulated situations in a controlled environment.

It was also an opportunity for public education.

“When it comes to grain entrapment, it is a high-risk, low-frequency occurrence where seconds and minutes count,” said Stewart. “It may not happen very often, but it is very high risk and the hazards are very real.”

Sadly, people in the area know all too well of the high risks associated with grain entrapment. In 2015, three young sisters — a 13-year-old and 11-year-old twins — from the area died when they became buried in canola seed.

“It hit our community pretty hard,” said Stewart. “It impacts our membership to this day because we have had to deal with the worst-case scenario. The (BeGrainSafe) program certainly helped to provide some of our members with some closure, as well as knowing that the department is taking those proactive steps to deal with those emergencies.”

The county approached the family of the three girls to ensure they would be comfortable with grain entrapment being put in the local public spotlight.

“The family was appreciative that the county, through the fire department, was being proactive and learning from a horrible tragedy,” he said.

While the BeGrainSafe training, which uses a mobile trailer to simulate an entrapment in flowing grain, was invaluable for the firefighters, Evan points out that the community outreach was equally important. The open house portion, which was held during a public market in Rocky Mountain House to optimize visibility, invited people to watch the firefighters practise rescue techniques and learn more about the risks of grain entrapment.

“We had hundreds of people attend and had very engaged members of the public asking great questions, saying that they were going to talk to their neighbours about (grain entrapment) because they hadn’t really realized the risks,” said Stewart.

Grain safety training and outreach will be an ongoing effort, he added. In addition to keeping a contingent of firefighters up to standards on grain rescue safety and equipment, the department will be looking to bring the BeGrainSafe program back in the near future to continue educating the community and change attitudes about grain safety.

“Encouraging a greater sense of safety in the local agriculture industry through education is definitely a priority for our fire department,” said Stewart, noting he has encouraged other fire departments serving farming communities to use the BeGrainSafe training.

The theme of this year’s Canadian Agricultural Safety Week, which runs March 10-16, is Safe & Strong Farms: Build an AgSafe Canada. For more information visit agsafetyweek.ca.

The post Grain entrapment danger hits home in Clearwater County appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

I have just read the article “Trapped in a flash — the horror waiting inside a grain bin.”

I was in awe when I read this. I have been farming for over 50 years, and I cannot understand what would make anyone enter a grain bin from the top when the auger is moving the grain out of the bin on the bottom.

What would be the reason for someone to enter a bin under these circumstances? And are these victims adults or unsupervised children?

Doug Burkard
Rosalind, Alta.

Hi Doug,

Excellent question — you’re right, it does seem like an unlikely scenario for someone to enter a grain bin from the top while an auger is drawing out grain. Three reasons that we know of that people enter the bin include:

• The ill-conceived practice of ‘walking the grain down’ in large bins. Someone goes into the bin to walk around the bin wall to cause the grain to avalanche down to the centre as it is being unloaded. (I believe the concept is that blending will occur to address the issue of differing qualities of grain being in the same bin.) As the individual walks the perimeter of the bin they gradually are moved farther and farther and farther away from the wall. After a couple of laps and becoming more exhausted, they may pause and are drawn down closer to the unloading sump. A realization of being trapped occurs, and they struggle to get back up to the side of the bin and the internal ladder. Due to exhaustion, every time they pause in their struggle to go up, they go farther down.
• A worker turns off the unloading system and goes into the bin for some reason (sampling, a crusted top, etc.). Another worker comes along and sees that the bin is not being unloaded, and turns on the unloading system not realizing that someone is in the bin. This is why lock-out/tag-out is important.
• Cases where farmers fall into the grain bin while it’s being unloaded.

Certainly, children are a major concern around moving grain. We have seen through media monitoring close calls involving grain entrapment in a variety of locations (grain bins, grain wagons, grain bags, etc.).

In 2015 in Canada, we know of nine instances where a person went into grain environments and became entrapped — seven of those individuals did not survive the entrapment. In the United States, there are about 30 fatalities yearly in grain.

The number of ‘got aways’ can only be a guess. As we engage producers in conversation about grain safety, we invariably hear about the close calls where someone got entrapped but were rescued by a family member or work colleague and there is never any formal record of the incident.

Based on analysis from the United States, grain that has gone out of condition is commonly involved in the incidents. Spontaneity seems to be the reason why many individuals find themselves trapped. In most reported incidents, it is reaction to a situation that is not well thought out that draws a person into the grain. Here are some other scenarios that we are aware of:

An individual is on the side of a grain trailer watching it unload, a gust of wind blows their hat off into the grain, they jump down into the grain to retrieve it and they quickly begin to sink. They call out for help — either no one hears them or in some instances their would-be helper rushes in to pull them out without first stopping the flow of grain, then two people become entrapped.

Grain has gone out of condition in the bin, unloading begins, and then the grain stops flowing. Someone decides to investigate why, goes in, and:

• Discovers that the grain has solidified onto the walls of the bin or into free-standing columns. They attempt to knock it down, unexpectedly the wall collapses and they become engulfed. (On occasion, the vibration of someone else opening up another access port is enough to cause the grain to collapse.)
• Large clumps of solidified grain have blocked the unloading sump. The person takes a long object and begins to poke it into the grain in the vicinity of the sump in an attempt to break up the clog. In many instances, the unloading auger is left running to indicate when the clog is broken up. Unfortunately, once the clog is broken up, the grain starts moving at literally hundreds of bushels per minute and the person is quickly drawn down.

We know there are solutions however. I am glad you’ve emailed. It shows that awareness efforts are working to bring attention to this serious issue.

We are working towards awareness; development of work procedures; use of personal protective equipment (such as fall restraint harnesses and lifelines); a no-working-alone policy; and a lock-out/tag-out policy.

Thanks once again for the thoughtful email and questions.

Sincerely,
Glen Blahey
Winnipeg, Man.

The post Why on earth would someone go into a bin with the auger running? appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

It starts when your foot sinks past the ankle and the grain reaches your lower calf. Eight or nine seconds later, the grain is up to your chest. And the only thought in your head is, ‘I’m going to die.’

“It depends on the size of the auger, but the thing you have to remember is that the average adult male occupies somewhere between 2-1/2 and three bushels of space,” said ag safety expert Glen Blahey.

“So a little bit of math will tell you that if you have a grain auger that delivers 100 bushels a minute, it doesn’t take long to move two or three bushels of grain. And because a person is more dense than the grain, they’ll flow down into that grain more quickly.”

Blahey has experienced that part first hand after volunteering to allow himself to be sucked down into a grain entrapment demonstration unit.

When the grain reached his knees, his legs were immobilized. He not only couldn’t lift them, he couldn’t move them at all. By the time the grain was up to his chest, his weight had effectively quadrupled. But it was the suffocating weight of the grain squeezing him like a giant hand that stands out in his memory.

“I must say it’s a very, very strange feeling when you’re standing in grain up to your chest and you try to wriggle your toes, and you can’t move them because of the pressure of grain on your shoes,” said Blahey, who works for the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association.

Having talked to farmers who survived grain entrapment, he knows that ‘strange feeling’ would almost certainly have been blind panic if it hadn’t been just a simulation. So his discomfort was short lived — a lever was pulled and the 100 or so bushels of grain rapidly drained away, leaving him suspended in a body harness.

“People who have experienced that say after the panic, there’s a sense of resignation when you realize, you can’t do anything. You just have to wait and hope you get rescued.”

Earlier this year, Blahey took a borrowed American grain entrapment demo unit (a mobile display built on a trailer) to farm shows in Brandon and Edmonton. It was a test run for a unit that his organization is having built and will put on the road later this year.

Every demonstration drew a good crowd and pretty much everyone had the same thought as they watched a mannequin being sucked into the bin in a few blinks of the eye.

“The most frequent comment is, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize how fast it happens,’” said Blahey.

Many also talked about having close calls. And he suspects many, many others had flashbacks of their near miss and what might have been had they not instinctively stepped back at the last moment or managed to grab the hatch opening in the split second before it was too late.

Again, there’s cold, hard arithmetic at play. Something called the “injury pyramid” says for every fatality, there are many more critical injuries; for every critical injury, there are many more injuries requiring medical aid; and for every one of those injuries, there are many near misses.

Statistics on grain entrapment are patchy at best, but Blahey knows of at least nine people who died of grain entrapment in 2015, which suggests there were likely thousands of close calls.

That’s why his organization, supported by Prairie farm groups and ag businesses, is spending $175,000 on its mobile unit. And that’s just the capital expense. It will cost “that much or more” to move the unit across the country each year and staff the demos for farm audiences or training for first responders.

But there’s no question it’s worth it, said Blahey.

“A brochure is words on paper and no opportunity to ask and answer questions. A face-to-face presentation is more realistic.”

Along with the ‘there but for the grace of God’ admissions from farmers at the presentations, one response in particular stands out for Blahey. A man brought his three sons up to him before a demo and said to them sternly, ‘Now you listen to what this man has to say.’ The boys stood in the front row, watched intently, and one by one, solemnly came up to shake his hand afterwards.

“That gives me a lot of encouragement we can make a real difference,” he said.

The ones who don’t quite get it are welcome, too.

Blahey can explain, in chillingly plain language, that a rope is no substitute for a harness: “If you grab a rope and you have hundreds of thousands of bushels of grain pulling down on you, you’re going to tire very quickly and have to let go of that rope.”

Or how when a body is compressed, circulation is impeded, oxygen levels in the blood drop, and toxins build up: “There was a young man in Manitoba who was trapped in a bin for several hours. He got out but ended up in a hospital in a coma for several days because of all the toxins that had accumulated in his body.”

He has even grimmer tales of truly senseless tragedies in grain bins.

But he is also hopeful that attitudes will change when producers see a demonstration and realize that grain can be as deadly as quicksand.

“We’re so appreciative of the producer organizations in Western Canada for supporting this project,” he said. “They really stepped up and said, ‘We need to do this.’”

The post Trapped in a flash — the horror waiting inside a grain bin appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The program, an initiative of the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association, will educate farmers, farm workers, and farm families about the dangers of grain handling and storage.

“The Alberta Wheat Commission is excited to be part of this grain safety initiative and it supports our belief that education is the most effective way to promote farm safety,” said Alberta Wheat chair Kevin Auch. “This is a great program and our commitment ensures growers have access to tools that can help shape a safe farming operation.”

The $120,000 contribution will help the Grain Safety Program launch and operate. The program includes a mobile demonstration unit, a trade show display, youth tabletop displays, and an interactive grain safety website. It will start with one mobile unit and trade show display, focused on Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta.

“APG’s support of the Grain Safety Program is about reducing injuries and deaths on Alberta farms,” said Alberta Pulse Growers chair Allison Ammeter, who farms near Sylvan Lake. “Producers and their families take steps to prevent injuries on their farms every day, and we want them to have the best information to stay safe around grain.”

The mobile unit will also help train first responders who are faced with a grain entrapment emergency.

There is a new emphasis on this area due to the high numbers of entrapments occurring as grain storage capacity expands, said Glen Blahey, a safety and health specialist at the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association.

From 2003 to 2012 there were 34 confirmed deaths. Last year alone there were seven, including four children. In Alberta, three children in the same family died after becoming entrapped in a truckload of canola.

Last year may have been “a bit of an anomaly” but the number of entrapments is far too high, and is on the rise, Blahey said.

“We see them progressively increasing,” he said.

Farmers or bystanders often fail to recognize the dangers, including realizing that the surface of grain is just like quicksand. There have been multiple incidents when someone has attempted to stand on or cross a grain surface and been sucked down as it’s being drawn out of the storage from below, Blahey said.

Entrapments also occur if someone attempts to walk across the surface of grain where a void exists beneath. This occurred in Manitoba a few years ago, when a farmer who was unloading grain entered the bin from the top to break a crust over the surface where the grain bridged. He broke through and was immediately enveloped from the grain that came down from the sides on top of him.

Death by grain entrapment also occurs if someone enters a storage facility and solidified grain on the walls collapses.

The first responders’ training is also very important because in rural situations many of these people are volunteers and the extrication procedures are difficult, technically challenging and dangerous in their own right, despite the precautions. Even as these incidents are on the uptick, the specialized training they need can remain a lower priority because they don’t happen all that frequently, said Blahey.

The first phase of the Grain Safety Program will run for three years and cost $400,000, with more than $300,000 raised so far. A second phase expanding the program into more communities would require another $385,000 in funding.

Other donations and sponsorship have come from grower associations, companies, event organizers and media sponsors across the country.

With material from CASA release

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“It is imperative that farm safety remain a top priority for our industry,” said Stuart Holmen, an ACPC director and producer from Paradise Valley. “We all feel strongly that educational opportunities are the most effective way to improve safety for farm families and their employees.”

The new initiative will see three mobile grain entrapment demonstration units built.

“Each of these units would serve communities at fairs and trade shows, train first responders in grain rescue techniques, and be used by commercial grain farmers for training agricultural workers,” said Marcel Hacault, executive director of the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association.

Alberta Canola Producers, Manitoba Canola Growers, and SaskCanola will each provide $30,000 over three years for the project.

For more information on the mobile grain entrapment demonstration unit program, contact CASA at 877-452-2272 or at info@casa-acsa.ca.

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