First responders in rural communities across Ohio have an acute need for grain bin rescue training, but a finite amount of availability to take such training. That’s about to change.
According to a report from the Ohio Farm Bureau, the Wayne County Regional Training Facility in Apple Creek, OH, a nonprofit group formed to train first responders in a six-state area will now offer first responders grain bin rescue training.
Phase 1, completed in 2018, was a collaborative project among Ashland, Holmes, Medina and Wayne County Farm Bureaus. It includes a 60-foot grain leg with augers, a 7,500 bushel grain bin and a 15-foot hopper bin (which will ultimately have an open roof for grain entrapment rescue trainings).
Phase 2 is on track to be completed this year and will include a balcony that will be built around the 15-foot bin, so training class members can observe the training instruction. In addition, a steel-framed building will be constructed over the 15-foot bin so that training can take place in all weather conditions, the first of its kind in the region.
“We want to make the training as realistic a situation as possible, not only on the farm, but for commercial elevators, too. All scenarios,” Dan Zippay, manager at Custom Agri Systems Inc., one of the project’s in-kind donors, told the Ohio Farm Bureau. “We wanted to show all the different factors of a grain bin rescue. We want to be one step closer to saving someone’s life.”
