46 Lives and Counting: NECAS Training Leads to Missouri Rescue

For many, a grain bin is a familiar staple of the rural landscape, but for one Missouri farmer last month, it became the site of a life-threatening emergency. The difference between a tragedy and a miraculous rescue came down to three hours of grueling work and years of specialized training from the National Education Center for Agricultural Safety (NECAS) at Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC).

The Golden City Fire Department in Golden City, Mo. had prepared for this exact moment. Before the call ever came in, the team completed NECAS training three separate times. When they arrived on the scene, they found a situation that had already grown dire; bystanders had spent an hour attempting to free the trapped individual before emergency responders were notified.

"Once the neighboring department got the response, they knew we had the wall, so they called us in," said Chief Eric White.

The "wall" White refers to is a rescue tube-a critical tool provided by Specialty Risk Insurance, a long-standing supporter of NECAS. Over the course of a three-hour operation, responders used two of these rescue walls to slowly extricate the farmer from the suffocating weight of the grain. The victim was successfully pulled to safety and treated for hypothermia.

For Chief White, the success of the mission was no accident. "It's great training," he said. "You get to get in and experience the feeling of not being able to move. We had a plan we could go by and we knew what we were doing."

This rescue marks the 46th life saved by a NECAS-trained department since 2012. While the College is widely recognized for its academic excellence, its partnership with NECAS extends a mission of safety far beyond the classroom. From the cattle ranches of Wyoming to the vineyards of the West, the College works to protect those in one of the nation's most dangerous occupations.

"NECAS was founded as a hands-on training program to help teach farmers and ranchers safer ways to work, as well as teach rural first responders how to rescue someone who is entrapped in a farming incident," explained Dan Neenan, director of NECAS.

Under Neenan's leadership, the center has distributed 452 grain rescue tubes and provided training across 35 states. The impact is personal for Neenan, who often follows up with departments after a successful mission. "I love getting calls back from the departments that have had a successful rescue and talking about the rescue versus the training to see if there is anything we need to add to our program," he said.

Located on the Peosta campus of the College, NECAS remains the only national center devoted entirely to agricultural safety. Beyond grain bin rescues, the center offers programs on tractor rollovers, combine extrication and prevention of grain dust explosions.

Farmers and ranchers are encouraged to get farm first aid kits and see the full list of rescue programs and training opportunities on the NECAS website.