In Support of Grain Bin Safety Week
By: Jenny Lichty
You shouldn’t be going to the funeral for your best friend’s husband at the age of 27. You want to think it won’t happen. But the message comes. You reread it over and over thinking this can’t be true.
The days and weeks following Bret’s grain bin accident still didn’t make it seem real. But it happened. Investigations happened. The funeral and visitation happened. He was the second Iowan to die in a grain bin accident in 2015. You think it won’t happen to you until you’re sitting in a lawyer’s office as your best friend relives the day and explains how her husband became trapped under bushels of soybeans.
Grain-related entrapments accounted for 56.7% of agricultural confined spaces documented cases in 2019. The same 2019 Purdue University study reported 58.2% of them were fatal. Special equipment and training are required for a successful rescue like the call that the Hills Fire Department assisted on in January 2021. As we find ourselves in the middle of Grain Bin Safety Week, an advocacy campaign started by Nationwide in 2014, we’re proud to support the Hills Fire Fighters Association with a $500 donation for additional grain bin rescue equipment.
Want to join us in supporting the Hills Fire Fighters Association? Checks can be made out to Hills Fire Fighters Association and sent to PO Box 246, Hills, IA 52235. For more information on their current campaign, click here.
Not in the Hills area but want to support your local fire department? Nominate your local fire department to receive a grain rescue tube and training from Nationwide here.