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Hills volunteer firefighters spent several hours Thursday evening, Sept. 24, learning how to use new rescue equipment in grain entrapment emergencies.
“It’s an extremely versatile piece of equipment,” said Hills Fire Chief Jared Rozeboom. “There are a variety of ways to put this together — it doesn’t have to be a perfect circle.”
Ten curved, metal interlocking panels slide together to surround a victim or lock side by side to mimic the curve of the bin, if a person is trapped against the inside of the bin.
Jack Volz of Safety and Security Consultation Specialists of Minnesota Lake led the training and showed rescue crews how to use the equipment, which is made by Outstate Data of Elbow Lake.
He traveled to Hills pulling a specially designed training center, a trailer consisting of a gravity-flow wagon box filled with plastic beads to mimic grain and other equipment, including an auger, common at farm sites.
Volz’s training in Hills came the day after assisting with the recovery of a 72-year-old Fairmont farmer who became trapped in a grain bin.
The Fairmont Fire Department spent 11 hours on the call, which is not unusual during a recovery.
“Four to six hours is a good rescue,” Volz said.
He stressed to Hills firefighters to call for mutual aid because grain must be emptied from the bin as quickly as possible.
“If they are buried, you have to cut the bin — you have to get the grain out of the bin,” he said.
Since 1995 Volz has gathered information from dozens of grain entrapments and recoveries similar to the one in Fairmont. He asked what worked during the extractions and rescues and what didn’t.
The Hills Fire Department is familiar with grain rescue equipment and already has a grain rescue tube. The new equipment is more versatile.
It was purchased through the Paul and Bertha Thompson Trust. Cost of the equipment was $2,700.