Grain bin rescue part of New York firefighter training

Aug 04, 2016

Emergency crews learning how to save farmers from grain bin incidents

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

Firefighters from Jefferson, Lewis, Oswego and St. Lawrence counties in New York received training on a new tool designed to save farmers from grain bin incidents.

The tool is known as a grain bin rescue tube. It’s a large, yellow cylinder that’s lowered into a grain bin if someone has fallen in and is unable to move. The cylinder surrounds the farmer and a specialized auger allows firefighters to remove grain from inside the tube and allows the victim to climb out.

“This is a great thing to have in the region,” John Wagner, a field supervisor with the New York Farm Bureau, told the Watertown Daily Times. “This being such a huge agricultural areas in Jefferson, Lewis and southern St. Lawrence, we thought there was a need for this.”

New York grain bin training
Volunteers practice using the grain bin rescue tool.
Photo: Amanda Morrison/Watertown Daily Times

Adams Fire coordinator Robert Simpson while there hasn't been an incident that's required to tool yet, farms have grown in the past 10 years and more grain bins are installed on farms.

Training and grain bin safety presentations will also be part of Empire Farm Days, which takes place from August 9-11.

National Education Center for Agricultural Safety director Dan Neenan will discuss the four most common ways people get stuck in grain bins, the equipment every grain bin operator should have on-site and how farmers can protect themselves from grain dust and mold.

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Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.