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Nationwide Awards Fire Departments with Rescue Tubes

29 departments will be provided specialized bin rescue tubes, training courses

Each year, tragedy strikes across rural America when lives are lost due to grain bin entrapments.

To help lead the fight against these accidents, Nationwide, in partnership with the National Education Center for Agricultural Safety (NECAS), has selected a record 29 fire departments as winners of the fifth annual Nominate Your Fire Department Contest. As recipients of the award, each department will be provided specialized bin rescue tubes and training courses.

Nationwide created the Nominate Your Fire Department Contest, in accordance with Grain Bin Safety Week, after identifying a lack of specialized resources available to rural fire departments, who are often the only line of defense against bin entrapments. This year, more than 400 contest submissions were received.

"This year, I'm happy to announce that we'll be supplying rescue tubes to more fire departments than ever before," says Brad Liggett, president of Nationwide Agribusiness. "Grain bin entrapments can devastate a family in a matter of seconds and we hope that this effort will help save lives that would otherwise be lost. Until we can convince all farmers to develop a zero-entry mentality, we will continue to make rescue resources as widely available as possible."

Over the last 50 years, more than 900 cases of grain entrapments have been reported in the United States, and have resulted in a 62% fatality rate. Since 2014, Nationwide's annual safety contest has awarded rescue tubes and specialized training to 77 fire departments across 23 states. Nationwide provided tubes have been used to save the lives of two farmers in Kansas and Minnesota.

Read a list of the winners here.

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