VIDEO: It happens more than you think.
Gridley Fire Chief Casey Knobloch said the 68-year-old farmer tried to break up corn stuck in the bin to load a truck, fell in, and sank into the center of the bin up to his neck.
The man was taken to a hospital with compression injuries and was released Friday morning.
Knobloch said any movement by the corn could have completely covered him. He said it was a complex rescue.
“With a grain rescue tube, it’s pieces that are small enough to fit through the top hatch of a bin that they can slide together in a circumference around the individual,” Knobloch said. “The city of Pontiac arrived, and the city of Chenoa arrived with vacuum trucks and actually vacuumed out the corn around the individual.”
A Purdue University report shows there were 42 grain entrapments in 2022, which resulted in 15 deaths.