BRIDGEVILLE, Del. — Farmers across the Delmarva Peninsula got hands-on grain safety training this week in an event coordinated by Mountaire Farms and hosted by the Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Company, aimed at keeping farmers safe on the job.
Participants experienced both sides of a grain engulfment, either getting "engulfed" themselves or practicing as first responders using the same tools emergency crews rely on during a real rescue.
Bill Harp, a training instructor with the Safety and Technical Rescue Association (SATRA), the nonprofit technical rescue trainer leading the event, said grain engulfments disproportionately affect family farms, with about 70% of engulfments and fatalities happening on them, compared to 30% in commercial settings.
Farmers may enter grain silos if their grain is not flowing properly. Harp said farmers can become trapped in a matter of seconds.
“I've had a farmer that was engulfed twice, five years apart,” Harp said. “So the whole idea that it'll never happen, unfortunately, we see it happening far too often, and with the bins getting bigger and moving grain faster and the farmers becoming an older workforce, it kind of sets up a perfect storm for one of these disasters.”
The simulation is designed to leave a lasting impression on participants, Harp said.
“In kind of a weird way, we're hoping that once they get engulfed in grain, they realize they don't ever want to be engulfed in grain,” he said. “And so it's kind of a reverse thing here of giving them that opportunity to see what predicament they would really be in and have that set with them so that they're doing everything they can to make sure they're not duplicating that on their family farm.”
Participants got to experience both sides of an engulfment -- getting "engulfed" themselves or practicing as a first responder, using the same tools emergency crews rely on during a real rescue.
Jay Baxter, a farmer who took part in the training, said the experience drove home just how quickly a routine task can turn dangerous and how little grain it takes to overpower someone, requiring specialized equipment to get free.
"As a farmer, this kind of training is extremely important to us. We realize that sometimes we think we're invincible," Baxter said. "This training kind of helps bring it into real world, real life experience... think through this a little bit."
While Mountaire regularly trains its own employees and local first responders, this was the first event the company offered directly to farmers in the community. Zach Evans, Director of Mountaire Cares and Stakeholder Affairs, said the company felt an obligation to extend that training to farmers in the community.
"Our farmers are so good at what they do... that they don't always keep it top of mind just how dangerous their jobs can be," Evans said. "It seems like every year, there's always a few instances where people are put in dangerous or compromising positions on the farm…We feel like because of our role in the agricultural community, it's imperative that we take the opportunity to offer the same kind of training to farmers as we offer to our staff.”
Evans said hosting the training at the Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Company was a deliberate choice.
"We recognize that meeting farmers where they are, coming into their community, getting closer to the farm, makes access to this training that much easier,” he said. “And so typically we've hosted this at our sites at Mountaire Farms. We're really grateful to partner with the Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Department today and be able to host it here on site," Evans said.
Mountaire leadership said they plan to look for other opportunities across the Delmarva Peninsula to bring the training to other rural communities.
The event comes months after a grain incident in Bridgeville in April that killed one person and injured another. According to Delaware State Police, the men had entered a grain tank to loosen equipment but became trapped after corn from a higher level in the tank slid onto them.
