Some luck and good training saved the life of a farmer trapped at the bottom of a bin, buried by hundreds of bushels of ground corn at a farm just south of Pelican Rapids. Fire Chief Trevor Steeves says the victim was cleaning out a plugged feed line when he tripped a sensor, which flooded the bin with the grain. He says firefighters used buckets to start digging out the corn and then brought in a giant industrial vacuum to suck out the remainder of the grain:
“Went down their found the victim he was buried and had been completely covered. They were able to run a little bit of the product out and get him so he can breathe.”
Steeves says the 70-year-old victim is doing well:
“We had oxygen on him for a little while. And he is a very good physical condition. One of those Scandanavian farmers — go, go, go every day.”
Steeves has had extensive training on such rescues but he says very few victims survive these types of accidents.
