Louisiana Farm Bureau Educates First Responders, Farmers about Grain Bin Safety
By Keely Ana Strickland
Louisiana Farm Bureau News
In just the few seconds it takes you to read this sentence, a farmer could become trapped in inescapable, knee-deep grain.
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation (LFBF) partnered with Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation to host a series of grain bin safety workshops across the bayou state. Over a three-day span, over three hundred farmers and first responders were trained on the risks and safety precautions concerning grain bins.
For the past fifty years, the fatality rate associated with working in and around grain bins was around 60%. As of 2022, it is now 36%. Louisiana Farm Bureau has hosted these workshops for over a decade to aid in continuing the decline.
“You can’t get careless because that’s when accidents happen,” said Vincent Cannatella, owner and operator of Cannatella Outdoors Farms.
While these accidents don’t occur very often, a seemingly small mistake could be the difference between life or death.
“An accident like that could happen to me in a heartbeat if I just get careless,” said Cannatella. “You forget one thing. You think you’re doing it right. You step left when you should’ve stepped right.”
No one is exempt from a grain bin’s hidden dangers, so it’s important first responders are trained how to perform a grain bin rescue. Firefighter Operator Joseph Ashcraft works for St. Landry Fire Protection District No. 1. He participated in the rescue portion of the training and experienced a grain entrapment in a controlled environment.
"Being in this situation, you're stuck,” said Ashcraft. “You can't move. You can't. The more you fight, the more you sink. So it's very weird, even though I know it's controlled and I know that, you know, I'm going to be taken out, still very weird."
In a bin, grain is like quicksand. Once you are up to your knees, the intense pressure makes it impossible to fight back or rescue yourself. After participating in this training, Ashcraft and numerous other first responders now feel better equipped to respond to accidents on farms across Louisiana.
“Now, if I go, I've got a general idea of what to do,” said Ashcraft. “They can tell me that we need the panels and I know what those are now. Even though it's just a basic knowledge, it's a knowledge of something and that’s better than nothing.”
Louisiana Farm Bureau does not take this issue lightly and is dedicated to promoting grain bin safety and providing resources to farmers and first responders.
“I'm excited that we continue to see the interest out here,” said LFBF Safety Director Wendell Miley. “We will continue to do our part to help spread the message on grain bin safety and how to hopefully reduce them in years to come."
Miley is just one of many who work tirelessly to equip farmers with the means to prevent themselves from becoming part of that statistic. The LFBF Safety Department is working to pinpoint the locations of grain bin rescue tubes across the state. In the event of a flowing grain entrapment, first responders will be able to identify the one closest to them.
"Sometimes safety is hard to measure,” said Miley. “At the end of the day, if we know what we're doing in our department, preaching the safety message, if we can save one life by what we do with our education, that's all worth it for me and I'll always stand by that."