Last year, there were at least 42 grain entrapments across rural America, which resulted in 15 fatalities. This is the highest number in more than a decade. To help prevent these tragic accidents and deaths, Nationwide and its partners have awarded life-saving grain rescue tubes and training to 60 fire departments across rural America through Nationwide's annual Grain Bin Safety campaign.
After receiving thousands of nominations in the 2023 Nominate Your Fire Department Contest, the insurer and its partners awarded grain rescue tubes and training to 60 fire departments this year including the Columbia-Adair Fire Dept.
Over the last decade, Nationwide’s Grain Bin Safety campaign has made an impact by providing these rescue tools and training to 332 fire departments across 32 states. At least 7 lives have been saved using these resources, including a recent Ohio rescue early this year.
The National Education Center for Agricultural Safety (NECAS) delivered rescue tubes and training to the 60 fire departments in 2023. They traveled to each location with state-of-the-art grain entrapment simulators. The comprehensive training sessions included classroom education and rescue simulations using the entrapment tools, which are loaded onto 20-foot trailers and able to hold about 100 bushels of grain each.
Since beginning the Grain Bin Safety campaign in 2014, at least seven fire departments have utilized their rescue tubes and training to successfully rescue entrapped individuals, including a recent Ohio rescue of a worker trapped up to his armpits in March 2023.
