Local fire, EMS companies complete Grain Bin Rescue training
By Christopher Miller
LAMAR, PA – The blistering heat of early June couldn’t keep local fire crews away from rescue training operations in Lamar township last Saturday afternoon.
“All of the people here will be certified in grain bin rescue operations,” said Jonathan Plessinger of Clinton County Emergency Services. “The general public does not realize that all of the guys here volunteer, and it takes lots of specialized training to learn this really technical stuff.”
The class, that was taught by Rescue Tech with funding provided by the Clinton County Fire Chief’s Association, was a two part effort combining classroom knowledge and practical application.
“It’s simple,” Andrew Kremser, Clinton County Emergency Services Director said, “we start our practical training with a “victim” who gets in the grain bin which only has a few feet of corn in it.”
The victim, played by Tyler Plessinger, pretends that he fell into a grain bin and had to be rescued. A metal tube was assembled in the grain bin and placed around the victim to regulate the amount of corn, or grain, that was pressing around the victim.
“The grain or corn acts like quicksand; the more you move around, the more it will pull you under and compress around your chest and extremities,” Jonathan explained.
An auger then works to draw the corn or grain away from the victim while other measures are taken to successfully remove the victim from the bin.
“What people don’t know is that there are gases that build up in these grain bins all day, every day, especially with the heat of the sun baking the metal containers,” Andrew said. “The fumes and gases are monitored and are vented out before anyone can even enter a grain bin – a farmer, a victim, anyone.” Basically the silage (the stuff inside the bin) is fermenting.
After the victim has the tube assembled around them, ropes and what looks like a flexible stretcher are tied around the victim, and then they are hoisted out of the grain bin. During the training, a ropes crew on the ground and the ladder truck from the City of Lock Haven assisted in hoisting the victim from the grain bin.
“During a real rescue, whoever gets to the victim first would assess the situation and establish communication with the person involved,” Andrew explained. “The first question which is always the hardest, is “is the person viable, or is recovery a viable option, and if it is, it takes time to get things set up, which is why our training is important to get the techniques down and to do what we do.”
A unique and very unexpected tool emergency personnel use is drone technology.
“We had the drone there as you saw and this really helps us with almost all of our calls like structure fires, locating missing people in the woods, or even this where the drone footage is shown to the incident commander who can then make decisions based on the live video footage,” Jonathan explained. “It has infrared capability and has been very useful since we bought it.”
Retired Lock Haven Fire Chief Norm Wolfram was on hand for the training and technique application.
“It was a good learning experience,” Norm said. “It’s just great to see all of the stations here working together as one.”
In all, the trainings were deemed successful by Kremser and Plessinger.
“This class is very technical and everyone worked together to accomplish the end goals and everyone learned a great deal…now we are definitely ready if this were to happen around here,” Andrew said.
Special thanks to Phil Courter and his farm for hosting emergency personnel for this very important training.
Jonathan also thanks The Old Corner restaurant for providing lunch, water, and drinks for the personnel, the Courter Family for use of the family farm, and Centre Communications.
In all, Hope Hose Fire Company, Goodwill Hose Company Ambulance, Citizens Hose Lock Haven, Lamar Township Fire Company, Nittany Valley Fire Company, Clinton County Department of Emergency Services, took part in the training.
