Some Greene County fire departments participated in a grain bin safety training course Wednesday evening.

Representatives with the National Education Center for Agriculture Safety from Dubuque led the four-hour class. Fire crews got to do hands-on training with a mock grain bin situation where they were able to assemble a five-panel grain tube to place around the victim, use hand-drill powered augers to remove the grain and then pull the victim out of the bin. Safety Fire Instructor Brad Kruse tells Raccoon Valley Radio there are several other components involved in a grain bin rescue.

“The other components are the air-monitoring, making sure it is safe to go in; rope rescue is another component, because you have to bring someone down inside the tube and bring them out into a safe area; there’s an EMS component in order to get everybody to make sure that they get them to the hospital and they get them treated correctly. So there’s a lot of different components.”

Jefferson Fire Captain Jack Williams says Terry Becker created their version of a grain bin rescue tube. The reason why their tube has five sides instead of a typical tube with four-sides is because it creates more surface area to work with for the victim. He adds that they went through three different tubes until they developed the final product. Williams would also like to thank Landis Cooperative for supplying the corn for the training.

At the end of the class, both departments receive a certificate of completion from the Fire Training Bureau.

Currently, only Jefferson, Paton, Churdan and Rippey have grain bin rescue tubes.