Kansas Chief – September 5, 2013
Submitted by Newz Group Clipping Service – September 13, 2013
The farmers and ranchers of Doniphan County have raised nearly $4,000 to buy rescue equipment for county first-responders.
The northeast Kansas county is home to about 88,000 acres of corn fields and about 60,000 acres of soybeans. When those crops are harvested, they’re stored on farms or in grain elevators before they’re shipped to market.
While a full grain bin signifies a successful harvest, it also spells deadly danger for farmers or grain elevator employees, who can be trapped while they’re working with the shifting grain. It can take only a few moments for a worker to suffocate as grain fills his lungs and crushes his ribs.
Tragedy can be averted, however, by trained rescuers using grain rescue tubes. That’s where the Doniphan County Farm Bureau stepped in.
“Last summer I heard about a training event being held in a neighboring county and brought it up at a meeting,” said Farm Bureau board member Matt Symns. “Ken Smith was familiar with the tubes being manufactured at a shop in another neighboring county (Smith is the county Farm Bureau vice president). “The Farm Bureau board set a goal of buying a rescue tube for each of the five rural fire districts in Doniphan County.
“As local farms have grown larger, on-farm storage has become more prevalent,” Symns added. “Soon after we started discussion on the project a producer in a nearby county became trapped in a large bin. That had a positive outcome, but I think it convinced us to go ahead with the goal of supplying and training all of our rural fire districts.”
When a farmer or grain elevator employee is trapped in a grain bin, a rescue tube inserted around his body can protect him from the crushing weight of the grain. Rescuers can then dig the grain out of the tube and remove the trapped worker.
With grain elevators and on-farm storage bins dotting the county, a quick response is vital. While one local fire department already had a tube, the Farm Bureau board decided to buy one for each remaining fire department. Their goal is to have a grain rescue tube within five minutes of a grain entrapment.
“Time’s precious when someone’s trapped in a grain bin,” says county Farm Bureau president Neil Coufal.
Coufal said the board sent 850 letters to farm bureau members in Doniphan County and nearby Atchison County. Board members also contacted local grain elevators, banks and “every business we could think of.”
“We ran across some elevators that didn’t know what a rescue tube was,” Smith said.
Smith, who’s a welder, is able to buy the tubes at cost ($1,000) from the manufacturer. One local fire company already had a rescue tube; that meant the Farm Bureau needed to raise $4,000 for the remaining tubes plus money for training.
“The training is quite a process,” Smith said. “It’s eight hours, and they cover gravity wagons and grain trucks as well as bins.”
Farm Bureau members made presentations to 4-H groups, at county fairs and other gatherings to raise awareness and money. By mid-July, they’d collected about $500 and were optimistic about raising additional funds at the county annual meeting in August.
Just before the mid-August meeting Bunge Milling and Bartlett Grain sent contributions and local banks and seed companies donated several hundred dollars.
When those funds were combined with the contributions of the county Farm Bureau membership, the rescue tube fund balance was $3,800 as of the meeting. A contribution came in that evening and more are expected.
“We’re pleased that area producers felt it was a worthwhile project,” Coufal said. “We’ll donate the additional money to pay for training expenses.
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