PITTSFIELD, ILL. -- According to Forbes magazine, farming is the fifth most dangerous job to have. In Pittsfield today, crews acknowledged that with a training seminar on how to get people out of grain bins. You can get sucked in up to your waist and still not be able to move your legs and get out. But with the help of 4 metal pieces, rescues can be made.
"All we're doing is simulating somebody being engulfed in a grain product. Today we have corn, it could be wheat, rice, any number of things. Simply all we do is perform a basic rescue. Show fire departments, grain industry people, local communities, boy scouts, anybody who wants to learn how to safely and efficiently get someone out from an engulfment," said rescue firefighter Shawn Seely.
"We come in, we asess the victim, he's alert, he's concious, does he need medical first aid and from there we apply the rescue tupe. We apply the tube in a circular pattern starting with the very front facing the patient and work our way around to the back...We don't want anybody to become a victim. We don't want anymore statistics. Farming is probably one of the worst jobs to have in the world as of right now," said Seely.
"Somebody at 165 pounds, if he's buried to his waist, he's going to be approximately 325 pounds pulling down on him. You can't just simply use a pully system and yank them right out of the grain because you could cause more damage than good... What we got to do is get the grain away from the patient as much as we can until they can bend their knees and as soon as they're able to bend their knees they're able to get free themselves," said Seely.
One reason farming is so dangerous is because of the big machinery like grain bins.
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