Grain food storage can prove to be a dangerous job here in the U.S. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA), in the year 2010 there were 26 reported grain bin fatalities. Willard Downs, an Agriculture Engineer from the University of Missouri, said there are simple, inexpensive safety techniques and equipment which could save countless lives.
“It is literally like a fluid, you’ve almost jumped into a river of grain if you will. And before you realize it, before you have any time to react, it takes less than five seconds before you could be buried to a point where you no longer have any ability to extract yourself,” Downs said.
Family farm operations must have members that understand the hazards of grain bins because they lay outside of OSHA regulations. Downs said “On family farms, the safe thing to assume is that it’s up to the farmer and the other individuals who own and operate that facility to make sure the safety is a (priority).”
“If you invested somewhere in the neighborhood of five hundred dollars on a particular facility you could go a long way towards ensuring safety,” Downs said.
It is expected that new safety implementations will help reduce that number of grain bin injuries and fatalities. All of these deaths in 2010 happened regardless of whether or not the worker was newly trained or had years of experience.