On an early morning in May, Aaron Dingle, an 18-year-old New Zealand man here in Alberta working as a farmhand, was rescued from a canola bin where he was buried up to his neck.
The entire incident could have ended in tragedy but for the quick response of his employers, and the actions, training, and use of specialized equipment by Hardisty and Killam firefighters who answered the call.
Dingle is working at the Burden farm north of Lougheed on an informal farm exchange. John Burden says, “We were part of the Ag Exchange program for many years, and now all those kids keep sending their friends and family our way.” Burden says it’s also much easier for foreign farm workers to come now than in the past.
Burden, his son Graham, and Dingle were unloading a canola bin last week, one where they saw a heated core and some sprouting in a small area.
Graham says he’d worked in the bin all day Tuesday with a grain vac, sucking out any problem spots, and could see that the further down towards the centre, there was a lot of good grain.
Burden says the bin had been full, but they’d taken out two truckloads, then dropped a ladder in to catch any remaining areas of bad grain.
Graham says when he’s working in a bin alone, he has a signal worked out to bang on the side if he’s in any trouble.
He says, “Aaron and I talked about that on the way to the bin. It’s a vulnerable position, and I told him that if he felt like his feet were sinking that he had to start moving to get bouyant.
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