Trapped in a silo for 6 hours, rural Berrien Springs man dies after being freed by neighbors, firefighters
By JULIE SWIDWA - H-P Staff Writer
Published: Saturday, February 21, 2009 1:10 PM EST
BERRIEN SPRINGS - A 65-year-old Berrien Springs man died Friday after being freed from a 60-foot-tall silo where he was trapped for about six hours.
Rescuers said Keith Brohman was alert and talking when rescued. But he died in a Life Flight helicopter before it had a chance to take off from his farm at 1637 Mount Tabor Road to fly him to South Bend Memorial Hospital after a dramatic rescue around 4 p.m. The exact cause of death had not been determined as of Friday night.
"The medics had been working on Mr. Brohman in the ambulance, and they had just loaded him into the helicopter, and before they could take off he died," Berrien Springs-Oronoko Township Police Chief Milt Agay said in a phone interview Friday night. "We were all hoping and praying for this to turn out differently than it did. It was just a real shock to all of us."
Emergency crews had been called to the Brohman farm after father-and-son neighbors, Tim and Brian Dargus, found Brohman trapped face-down in fodder in the silo. He apparently had been breathing through air pockets until the Darguses found him and began the process of freeing him. Berrien Springs-Oronoko Township firefighters delicately completed the job of pulling Brohman from the silo, but he died about an hour later.
Fire Chief Bruce Stover said that when Brohman was freed from the silo, he was conscious, alert and talking.
Rescue workers asked him a standard set of questions to assess his condition, Agay said.
"We were hoping and expecting that he was going to make it, based on his communication with us."
Agay said, though, that survival would have been nothing short of a miracle considering the trauma Brohman had suffered for so many hours.
"I was sitting on the road waiting for the helicopter to take off. They had worked on him in the ambulance to stabilize him, then transferred him to the helicopter.
Within moments they waved medics back over," Agay said. "It was a very unfortunate set of circumstances."
Family members said Brohman went out to feed his dairy cows around 6 a.m. and was found by the Darguses around 3 p.m. Brohman"s wife, Kathy, called Tim Dargus after her husband failed to come in the house for lunch.
At the scene Friday afternoon, Tim Dargus said he came to the Brohman farm, along with his son Brian, to look for Brohman.
"We went to the barn and started looking around. We thought maybe he"d had a heart attack or something," Dargus said. "Then we heard his voice in kind of a muffled fashion."
Dargus, a hog farmer, presumed that Brohman had entered the silo through a door to shovel out feed for the cows, as he did regularly.
Stover said frozen silage from above collapsed onto Brohman, burying him in an inclined, head-down position.
"He was constricted, but he was able to breathe," Stover said Friday afternoon before Brohman died.
The fire department was called to the Brohman farm at 3:03 p.m.
By the time firefighters arrived, Tim and Brian Dargus had used a circular saw to cut the lower door off the silo and had cleared enough silage to touch Brohman and talk to him.
"I kept my hand on him and talked to him while Brian called 9-1-1," Tim Dargus said.
Stover said rescue workers spent about an hour carefully digging silage away from Brohman so they could remove him through the opening the Darguses had created.
Rescuers would not have been able to open the door because silage was pushed up against it, and silage had piled up between Brohman and the upper door where he had entered.
"You did all the right things," one firefighter told Tim Dargus, who also is 65.
His attempt to save Brohman was more than a neighborly deed. He said Brohman was also his friend. Coreen Dargus, Tim"s wife, said the two men went to high school together and Brohman was the best man at their wedding.
"It"s a tragedy. He was a very good friend," Coreen Dargus said.
News Photo
By JULIE SWIDWA - H-P Staff Writer
Published: Saturday, February 21, 2009 1:10 PM EST
BERRIEN SPRINGS - A 65-year-old Berrien Springs man died Friday after being freed from a 60-foot-tall silo where he was trapped for about six hours.
Rescuers said Keith Brohman was alert and talking when rescued. But he died in a Life Flight helicopter before it had a chance to take off from his farm at 1637 Mount Tabor Road to fly him to South Bend Memorial Hospital after a dramatic rescue around 4 p.m. The exact cause of death had not been determined as of Friday night.
"The medics had been working on Mr. Brohman in the ambulance, and they had just loaded him into the helicopter, and before they could take off he died," Berrien Springs-Oronoko Township Police Chief Milt Agay said in a phone interview Friday night. "We were all hoping and praying for this to turn out differently than it did. It was just a real shock to all of us."
Emergency crews had been called to the Brohman farm after father-and-son neighbors, Tim and Brian Dargus, found Brohman trapped face-down in fodder in the silo. He apparently had been breathing through air pockets until the Darguses found him and began the process of freeing him. Berrien Springs-Oronoko Township firefighters delicately completed the job of pulling Brohman from the silo, but he died about an hour later.
Fire Chief Bruce Stover said that when Brohman was freed from the silo, he was conscious, alert and talking.
Rescue workers asked him a standard set of questions to assess his condition, Agay said.
"We were hoping and expecting that he was going to make it, based on his communication with us."
Agay said, though, that survival would have been nothing short of a miracle considering the trauma Brohman had suffered for so many hours.
"I was sitting on the road waiting for the helicopter to take off. They had worked on him in the ambulance to stabilize him, then transferred him to the helicopter.
Within moments they waved medics back over," Agay said. "It was a very unfortunate set of circumstances."
Family members said Brohman went out to feed his dairy cows around 6 a.m. and was found by the Darguses around 3 p.m. Brohman"s wife, Kathy, called Tim Dargus after her husband failed to come in the house for lunch.
At the scene Friday afternoon, Tim Dargus said he came to the Brohman farm, along with his son Brian, to look for Brohman.
"We went to the barn and started looking around. We thought maybe he"d had a heart attack or something," Dargus said. "Then we heard his voice in kind of a muffled fashion."
Dargus, a hog farmer, presumed that Brohman had entered the silo through a door to shovel out feed for the cows, as he did regularly.
Stover said frozen silage from above collapsed onto Brohman, burying him in an inclined, head-down position.
"He was constricted, but he was able to breathe," Stover said Friday afternoon before Brohman died.
The fire department was called to the Brohman farm at 3:03 p.m.
By the time firefighters arrived, Tim and Brian Dargus had used a circular saw to cut the lower door off the silo and had cleared enough silage to touch Brohman and talk to him.
"I kept my hand on him and talked to him while Brian called 9-1-1," Tim Dargus said.
Stover said rescue workers spent about an hour carefully digging silage away from Brohman so they could remove him through the opening the Darguses had created.
Rescuers would not have been able to open the door because silage was pushed up against it, and silage had piled up between Brohman and the upper door where he had entered.
"You did all the right things," one firefighter told Tim Dargus, who also is 65.
His attempt to save Brohman was more than a neighborly deed. He said Brohman was also his friend. Coreen Dargus, Tim"s wife, said the two men went to high school together and Brohman was the best man at their wedding.
"It"s a tragedy. He was a very good friend," Coreen Dargus said.
News Photo
