Fire department saves man’s life after winning a grain rescue tube and training from Nationwide
Fire Chief Matt Webb was heading to work when he heard the 911 call come in over his pager.
It was 9:53 a.m. on Aug. 8. A local farmer had just fallen into a bin of rotting corn in a small, rural community on the outskirts of the county. By the time Webb arrived on the scene less than 10 minutes later, the farmer was engulfed in corn up to his neck.
But thanks to a grain rescue tube and training provided by Nationwide almost two years earlier, Webb and other first responders were able to rescue the man and reunite him with his family in 1 hour and 44 minutes.
“It felt like an eternity,” Webb said. “But the training came back quickly, and it was a relief we had our own equipment. The program that’s out there for these tubes and training is such a life-saving resource in our county.”
Webb’s fire department is one of over one hundred in some of the country’s top farming communities that have received life-saving grain rescue tubes and training as part of Nationwide’s annual Nominate Your Fire Department Contest. Another one of those winners — the Westphalia Fire Department in Kansas — also used their new skills in 2015 to rescue a man who had become entrapped in a grain bin.
“It only takes seconds to become entrapped in grain and less than a minute to become completely engulfed,” said Brad Liggett, president of Nationwide Agribusiness, the No. 1 farm insurer. “Once grain is above knee-level, it is nearly impossible to get out without assistance. Until we can convince all farmers and other grain handlers to develop a zero-entry mentality, we will strive to make tubes and rescue training as widely available as possible.”
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