Wilcox farms grain elevator collapse

20 deg. at 11"30pm pacific time, and dropping. Pierce Co. sheriffs dept, still keeping family, and volenteers, from removing the corn from the site, so the victim, can be recovered. The fire dept says the adjacent metal silos may collapse on any rescuers, and sherrifs dept is backing the fire dept, We have plenty of dump trucks standing by, to receive grain, and skid loaders and tractor loaders. Perhaps the worker missing, is alreadsy dead, but the longer it takes to start then the guy will certainly be gone, I personally am frustrated. Ralph Buchanan Roy WA.

It doesn"t look good for the missing person.
Poke here

I was a fire fighter for 35 years and saw a huge shift in the amount of risk that was acceptable. When I started you accepted that under some rare situations that you would risk your life, and that if you did not get injured periodically you were not doing your job. Now no risk is acceptable. Fire service management is considered incompetent if a member is injured during operations, or God forbid a civilian. You who stand to lose, in order to be "PC", must praise all that the fire service does.

Why not hook a good rope to the top and pull it over the grain
will spread out and if he's in there he surely Will show up dead or
alive. And no one will be hurt if you use a cherry picker to hook
up the rope. Sometime people think that the firemen are all you
need to make a safe rescue I have seen them push experts in
the field aside while trying to figure out what to do.
Walt

Several years ago here a man got his leg cought in a corn head.The man could have been easily freed be loosening several bolts and rotateing the head backwards.But NO! local emt/firefighters had to take the 'jaws of life' and litterally cut that head to pieces.Took longer and completely unnessarily destroyed the head.BTW The man kept his leg.

That's a tough call. As a fire officer that has training and experience in collapse and confined space rescue AND had a similar situation occur just this past August 6, take a breath before you launch a "John Wayne" approach to this situation. This is a complicated and extremely dangerous situation- especially with many unknowns for us 'quaterbacking' from many states away.
Hoping for the best for all involved.

Our local FD is a joke. Always crying about safety. Get a different job if you want safety. Sadly it sounds like that is getting to be the norm everywhere.

(quoted from post at 10:45:25 12/04/13) Our local FD is a joke. Always crying about safety. Get a different job if you want safety. Sadly it sounds like that is getting to be the norm everywhere.

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You've got insurance, so we don't need to put the fire out.

I agree. Lots of things to consider there, the first worry I would have is with the many power lines. And I would want to know a whole lot more about the layout and how much grain is in the damaged silos before I would let ANYONE get even halfway close to the scene.

Those are large bins and there could be an incredible amount of weight/force that could be released suddenly if the tanks decide to rupture more.

10 or 15 years ago, one of our neighbors had the misfortune of having his largest grain bin fail suddenly during the night. It had not been filled very long, but it was as full as it could be. One side of the bin opened almost from top to bottom, and it spilled wheat for a long distance. Luckily the damage happened at night and no one was around to be injured. It took about a week for them to clean up the mess, finishing with some kind of a vacuum system. That tank was WAY smaller than the one in the news photos, but they really wondered just how to deal with it from a safety angle and to save most of that year"s harvest.

The failed grain bin was never rebuilt. I do not think it was more than about 20 years old when it failed, but it was much larger than the other tanks that farmer had. The design of that failed tank was very similar to the tank that broke in this situation. The other, smaller tanks are still there and it appears they are still faithfully storing grain every year.

I wish I knew just what they should do. Hopefully they will come up with an effective plan that will resolve the current hazards without anyone else getting hurt. Feed mills are by their nature dangerous places to work.

Hey guys and gals, a lot of us have to deal with volunteer fire departments. Both volunteer and paid fire fighters will risk it all when there is a reasonable chance to save someone. But saving you toy tractor collections isn't justification for someone to die or be seriously injured. Now I know that sometimes they good too far on the side of safety but most of them, at least around here, have a pretty good balance going.

As far as this collapse is concerned I'm thinking that someone decided that there is little or no chance of finding the worker alive and therefore risking others lives isn't worth the risk.

Deltared: The situation you told of could well have to do with the fact that using the tools to cut the guy out reduces the chance of further injury and subsequent lawsuits. Can't fault fire and rescue for that. Blame the ambulance chasing lawyers. There are a couple in my neck of the woods that are paying someone on 2 different hospital staffs to leave their business cards in patients rooms.

Rick

(quoted from post at 19:53:48 12/04/13) Hey guys and gals, a lot of us have to deal with volunteer fire departments. Both volunteer and paid fire fighters will risk it all when there is a reasonable chance to save someone. But saving you toy tractor collections isn't justification for someone to die or be seriously injured. Now I know that sometimes they good too far on the side of safety but most of them, at least around here, have a pretty good balance going.

As far as this collapse is concerned I'm thinking that someone decided that there is little or no chance of finding the worker alive and therefore risking others lives isn't worth the risk.

Deltared: The situation you told of could well have to do with the fact that using the tools to cut the guy out reduces the chance of further injury and subsequent lawsuits. Can't fault fire and rescue for that. Blame the ambulance chasing lawyers. There are a couple in my neck of the woods that are paying someone on 2 different hospital staffs to leave their business cards in patients rooms.

Rick

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Rick, Most fire departments do a good job, but as in anything else there are good and not so good. There is a department in my area where a young gung ho fellow became chief because the prior chief got sick and had to get out, one deputy had recently resigned due to a dispute with the young gung ho guy, and the other deputy just wanted out. The new Chief had a lot of training to his credit, but little experience either in fire service or life. He is the type, as in the case Delta Red related, who would ignore expert information from experienced civilians and do it "his way" with his pride often being a major factor in the decision.

Sounds like exactly what happened with our empty suit President!

I am a retired police Lt. from a mid-sized city (Wichita) and I agree with showcrop's earlier post. When I started (the 70s) we would have risked it all to save the missing man. In the late 80s and early 90s the tide started to turn and the trend to only picking the low hanging fruit (save those who are easy and 'safe' to rescue) began. I am often embarrassed for my former department when I read the news.

By the same token... there's a lot of people who show up on an emergency scene who don't work in fire departments, don't volunteer, are not trained, etc. and think they're going to tell the fire department how to do their job. Don't be surprised when you're told to go to fly to blazes fairly quickly...

Rod

Far too many times more people are killed while mounting a rescue operation for someone trapped in a silo... This sounds like one of those sad cases where the guy inside is not likely to have survived... so it comes down to whether you risk a life to recover a body. If you could hear the guy in there calling for help it would be an entirely different matter.

Rod

I have been a volunteer fireman for almost 30 years. We are in a rural area adjacent to a city of about 200,000. We go on around 120 calls a year. Rescue (and sometimes recovery) is always different, no two are the same. Humans can get themselves into some of the strangest situations. We have our local group of armchair quarterbacks who always know better. That is, until one of them needs a little help. In looking at the news reports and photos I am thankful we don't have anything like that in our area. There is no correct choice here. It's true that the gung ho all or nothing attitude has changed. But think about it: The hero goes in and gets hurt and now there are two (or more) people to rescue. Almost without exception, safety measures are developed because someone somewhere got hurt.

Our department is made up of 20 members, about half are farmers or work in the farming industry. The rest have varying talents ranging from electrical to plumbing to office type jobs. In the mix we usually have someone there who has knowledge about the situation and what to do.

From the description of the incident, it's pretty certain the victim could not have survived. There is no mention of what efforts have been made to locate him, so suggestions as to what "ought to be done" are worthless without all the information needed.

Wow, what a bunch of ungrateful jerks. If you don't like how it's being done, why don't you climb up there and take the reins yourself? Or better yet, volunteer for your local fire department so you can let them know everything they do is wrong.

Walk a day in their shoes, or shut up.