This week is National Grain Bin Safety Week, started by Nationwide back in 2014.
“No family should have to say goodbye to their loved one to another green bin fatality,” says Anita Howard. She tragically lost her son Colten in November of 2019 in a Montgomery County grain bin accident. She continues to advocate for grain bin safety on social media so no other family has to deal with the type of loss that they did.
Brock Grain Systems senior engineer Craig Smallegan says the best way to avoid an accident is to stay out of the bin altogether, but if you have to go in, he recommends these steps.
“One of the first things is lockout/tagout. You should lockout the sumps and make sure that they can’t be accidentally turned on while you’re inside the bin if you ever have to go inside the bin. Secondly, you should make sure that the grain is in good quality before you go inside the bin. And then finally, you should make sure that there’s someone there who can watch and make sure they keep an eye on you so that way you don’t end up falling or getting entrapped or something. They can do something about it if something happens to you inside the bin.”
Smallegan stresses the importance of grain quality. He says Brock Grain Systems can help with that.
“So, we have a full set of systems available. We have fans, and we have a full floor or partial floor aeration system, and we have a system that when you’re quoting a bin, it’ll help size the right fan that you need for whatever your cfm requirement is. And then we also offer grain dryers; those are available as well, and so you can dry the grain before putting it in the bin and then just use the fans on the bin to keep it at a good grain temperature.”
Nationwide is now in its ninth year of calling attention to grain bin safety and raising funds to supply critical rescue resources to rural fire departments across the country. Nominate Your Fire Department before April 30 for their chance to receive those resources from Nationwide.
Smallegan led a seminar on grain bin safety at the 2021 Indiana Farm Equipment & Technology Expo. The archived video of that seminar can be seen above.