GRAIN ENTRAPMENT RESCUE TRAINING IMPROVES, SAVES LIVES

Lindsay Mitchell

Oct 12, 2016  |  Today's News

IL Corn is hoping a checkoff investment will help first responders to save lives this fall.

Together with the Grain and Feed Association of Illinois and the Illinois Fire Institute, changes to the grain entrapment training process will make training local volunteer fire departments more manageable and affordable.

The training will now be an extremely effective 40 hours instead of 96 hours.  Included in the 40 hours is 8 hours of lecture and 32 hours of hands-on experience.

Volunteer fire departments will be able to participate and be trained while only giving up two weekends of their time.  Since many of the fire fighters are volunteers, this change is extremely important.

The new training program is recognized and approved on a national platform.

Additionally, to offset the cost for small communities and volunteers, IL Corn Marketing Board is considering opportunities to fund individuals interested in completing the certification.  The total cost to participate is $1,000.

The new training program follows IL Corn’s efforts to map the locations of grain rescue tubes available throughout the state.  We hope to provide resources to make finding the nearest rescue tube easy and effective, in addition to helping volunteers use the rescue tubes effectively. 

Ultimately, the goal is always to save lives.

According to the Illinois Fire Service Institute, there have been 900 grain bin entrapments nationwide in the past 50 years.  The ages of those trapped are typically 12-18 years and over 55 years old. 

Sixty percent of grain bin entrapment deaths are related to untrained rescuers and about 50 percent of the fatalities occur after the rescue has begun.

The first new training will be in January or February 2017.