Media Advisory: July 30, 2011

BWC steps up to save a life!

Training session emphasizes bin & silo entrapment safety

FARMDALE – Nearly 50 individuals from northeast Ohio today learned about the dangers of grain bins and silos during a special training sponsored by the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC). The training was designed to educate first responders, members from the agriculture community and construction industry about the hazards of working in and around bins and silos. Fifty-one people died in grain bin entrapments last year according to a Purdue University study.

“Like many things on a farm, grain bin and silos pose a serious risk, and failing to respect that can have devastating consequences,” says Jerry Palfy, a BWC industrial safety consultant. “Our goal in offering this session is to help first responders and the agricultural community understand, prevent and respond to incidents involving bins and silos.”

The four-hour exercise provided attendees an overview of the different types of entrapments; engulfment in a flowing column of grain, collapse of horizontal crusted grain surface, collapse of vertical crusted grain surface and entrapment or suffocation in grain transport vehicles. The course also provided hands-on rescue techniques; OSHA requirements for storage facilities; information on how victims end up trapped; information on how to prepare for the unexpected; and proper auger safety and rescue techniques. Palfy and Andy Bauer, a lifetime farmer, who formed the Champaign Landmark Bin Rescue Team in 2006, taught the course.

Palfy and Bauer emphasized these basic safety standards before entering a bin or silo:

• De-energize all equipment;
• Test the atmosphere;
• Prohibit “walking down grain or building material;”
• Wear fall protection equipment;
• Assign and train an observer in rescue techniques;
• Have rescue equipment ready nearby.

In addition to BWC, other sponsors of the training inlcuded W.I. Miller & Sons Farm of Farmdale, who hosted the event, as well as the Jack Doheny Cos., the Trumbull County Fire Chiefs Association and the Bazetta Fire Department. Participants came from Ashtabula, Columbiana, Geauga, Summit, Trumbull and Wayne counties to learn from these experts.

For information about BWC programs and services, visit ohiobwc.com.

# # #