Farm Safety Day seeks to prevent injuries

By Mira Schmitt-Cash, of the New Hampton Tribune

Even though most students today don’t live on a farm, many of them visit farms, and the need for safety awareness is as important as ever.

Students from area schools spend a day at the Big Four Fairgrounds in Nashua last week for Farm Safety Day, put on by Chickasaw County Extension, area businesses, ag students and other volunteers.

There was much to learn.

Safety information stations dealt with threats to breathing, heart health and bodily injuries. Other stations had information about animal handling, ATV use and tractors. There was even a station on bicycle safety.

GRAIN BINS

At the grain bin station, New Hampton vocational ag teacher Jim Russ explained that someone who has sunk to chest deep in a grain bin can suffocate even before the grain covers his or her head.

Each time the person breathes out and deflates his lungs the grain fills in the area and the person’s chest has less room to expand for the next breath.

It takes four minutes for a person trapped in a grain bin to suffocate, said New Hampton FFA member Luke Leichtman.

One solution would be to pull the person out, but most students can pull only 75 to 100 pounds, which is not sufficient to pull out a person buried up to the ankles in a grain bin. It takes about 300 pounds to pull someone buried to hip height, 625 pounds of effort to pull someone buried to neck height.

The quickest solution is to cut open the grain bin, spilling the grain onto the ground and taking the pressure off the lungs to give rescuers time to arrive.

The rotating spiral of an auger can also be dangerous.  

Cautionary stories of real-life injuries, such as a former teacher whose husband got a foot caught in an auger, were shared to underscore the importance of respecting the rules of physics.

“We’re not telling you this to scare you. We just want you to be safe around grain bins and farm equipment,” Leichtman said.

FIRE

At a fire safety trailer set up by the New Hampton Fire Department, students viewed equipment, identified fire hazards and discussed them before learning about responses. Smoke detector batteries should be changed every six months. Once a detector starts a warning, if the door is cold, open it slowly, check for fire and smoke, crawl low, get out fast, go to a safe meeting place and never re-enter a burning building, students learned from a video.

The video room filled with “smoke,” operated by Fire Chief Steve Geerts, as firefighters Bill Richter and Taylor Steine pointed students to the back room of the trailer, where they had to climb out the window on a ladder.

Richter asked students afterward if they had a fire escape ladder at home. Few if any hands went up in that group.

ELECTRICAL

When a downed power line contacts a bus, the rubber on the tires acts as an insulator. If a student steps a foot off the bus, it completes the circuit and shock results. If instructed to leave such as if the bus is on fire, students can jump off the bus. While jumping the student touches neither the bus nor ground, and it does not complete the circuit.

It only takes 50 volts through the heart to be fatal, and an electrical outlet is 120 volts.

Brooklyn McShane got to try on some personal protective equipment worn by linemen such as presenters Clint Deutsch and Andy Uthoff. This included rubber sleeves and gloves and a helmet with a face mask.

TOBACCO

Shelley Smith, who coordinates Floyd and Mitchell County tobacco prevention, discussed the impact of smoking on people’s lungs, as simulated by a pair of pig lungs.

“There’s been enough opened up bodies that we know the damage it does,” Smith said.

The person with the smoker’s lungs wouldn’t be able to run across the yard and would struggle going up and down stairs, Smith said. Students also calculated the cost of smoking a given amount for a year.

Smith had students practice the motto, “I’m too smart to start.”

For those who are using tobacco products, she said the message should be supportive and encouraging for them to quit.

“You’re not going to shame anyone into changing their behavior,” Smith said.

ANIMALS

Nashua-Plainfield FFA students explained safe animal handling.

Those who may lead large livestock were warned to bunch up and grasp the rope rather than wrap it around their hand. If the calf pulls away, the leader is not left with a broken hand.

Kollyn Lentz had advice useful to children who participate in the scrambles at the fair. When picking up a chicken, its head should go backward between the person’s elbow and the ribcage (like a football) and the legs should go between the person’s fingers.

ATV

ATV safety was discussed in light of a woman in her 20s who was killed that week in an ATV accident.

A helmet can protect the brain from injury in an accident such as in an ATV.

N-P FFA member Lukas Bucknell demonstrated this by dropping a cantaloupe and saying that was similar to a concussion, symptoms of which include nausea and dizziness.

Throwing the cantaloupe caused it to split open. He got the students watching to acknowledge that the inside of the cantaloupe coming out would be compared to the brain.

A third cantaloupe was bagged, placed in the ATV helmet and spiked onto the ground with little damage, showing how it can protect the head.

“It does help you from getting a serious injury, even death,” Bucknell said.

To avoid rollovers, N-P FFA member Kacie Erwin warned students to shift their weight when going around corners, and noted it is harder to shift when someone rides with you.

The Farm Safety Day was co-organized by Chickasaw County Extension 4-H Youth Coordinator Jaci Tweeten and volunteer Crystal Griffin, along with station sponsors.