It happened 14 years ago, but Todd Underwood of the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration has vivid memories of being called to investigate the ingestion of a worker at a grain elevator he prefers not to name.

Underwood, who heads OSHA’s Wichita-area office, said the elevator safety manager went into a grain bin instead of a younger colleague to walk on the grain to pick up lumps and air pockets.

“He didn’t want to go in,” Underwood said. “They were going to go on top of the grain and try to knock it down. He said, “It’s too unsafe, so don’t go in.”

But then, tragedy struck.

“The bridge between the grains has come loose,” Underwood said. “He fell, was seized, and died.”

There are dozens of grain handling accidents that occur each year in the US. That’s why OSHA has placed several states under regional programs over the years to promote worker safety at grain handling facilities.

Missouri, which is under Underwood’s jurisdiction, is the latest state to be added to the list. The program aims to “target high-risk job sites, pushing employers to address the root cause of employee injuries and prioritize safety as a core business value,” OSHA Kansas City Regional Administrator Billie A. Kizer said in a press release.

Like other states on the list, including Kansas and Nebraska, Missouri has been the site of what Underwood calls avoidable accidents. OSHA responded to three deaths, 13 accidents that required amputation and 36 hospitalizations in the three states between Oct. 1, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2023, according to the agency.

Catching and swallowing

When it comes to cereal container choking and swallowing accidents, safety experts have a simple rule: Never get into a cereal container full of cereal. But during harvesting, problems can arise.

The grain, which is often corn, can clog the auger – the rotating screw-like machines used to move the grain in and out of the bin. It can also collect in clumps inside the bin, sticking to the walls or forming air pockets that impede transport.

When problems arise, workers can be tempted to ignore safety rules, said Stuart Beckman, director of safety for Columbia Grain International. The company operates grain elevators and processing plants in North Dakota, Montana and other plains and western states.

“And then people feel compelled to get into a bin to try to move the beans or get them down,” Beckman said. “And these are very dangerous things that we cannot allow.”

The danger lies in the sand-like properties of corn kernels when gathered in a bin, said Salah Issa, a professor of agriculture and industrial safety at the University of Illinois. He said it was easy for anyone walking on corn in a bin to either sink into it or get caught in the stream of corn loaded by an auger.

“It really doesn’t take long,” Issa said. “It takes about five seconds for the beans to reach knee level. Once you’re at knee level, you can’t escape. You can’t go out. It just catches you.”

Issa said getting caught in grain is the most common type of accident that can happen in the grain storage industry. Workers can also be entangled or hit by machinery.

Another danger is explosions inside grain containers, caused by a spark from machinery igniting grain dust. Underwood said they are not the most common, but they are often fatal. He has seen about six people killed by various grain explosions in the last 10 or 20 years.

Dozens of accidents

Cereal ingestion accidents are a relatively recent phenomenon. For centuries, corn was harvested and stored still on the cob. But Issa said grain bin accidents started happening in the 1960s when changes in technology led to corn being removed from the cob before storage.

The number of such accidents appears to have peaked in 2010, Issa said, and now fluctuates at lower numbers from year to year.

There were at least 27 cases of grain traps and 28 cases of other types of accidents in 2023, according to to an annual accident report involving US agricultural enclosures from Purdue University.

These 55 total cases, which include 29 fatal cases, represent a decrease of almost 34% from the 83 cases in 2022. The number of grain seizure cases also decreased by about 36% from the previous year .

But Issa isn’t ready to call the decline a trend, saying the number of grain-related accidents has been cyclical since their peak in 2010. And he noted that Purdue’s annual report is based on grain-related accidents reported in the news media. , which may not be a complete record.

Safety efforts

Stricter safety regulations and new technology have helped prevent the increase in accidents, Issa said.

At Columbia Grain, Beckman said the company tries to keep grain as dry as possible to avoid spoilage that can encourage clumping and clogging. And he said that their workers never go into a basket full of grain. Instead, poles and other special tools help workers clean up clogs and clumps without having to go into the bin at all.

Issa said it’s also important to maintain the machines that are used to haul grain up and down from grain bins to reduce sparks that can ignite grain dust. He said a proper air filtration system can keep grain dust to a minimum.

Underwood said he doesn’t believe employers are deliberately putting their workers at risk. But when grain is being moved, he said it’s very easy for safety rules to be overlooked and regular cleaning and maintenance to fall behind.

“Our best advice is that companies need to have a good, strong grain safety and health program,” Underwood said. “And they have to follow it, because that tends to be the trend, is that we go out and find that some procedures and policies are not being followed.”

This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Mediaa collaboration of Midwest public media newsrooms. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.