The Rural Firefighter Delivering Agricultural Safety and Health Training Course is working to train firefighters how to respond to farm emergencies.
The National Farm Medicine Center has found the farming industry is one of the most dangerous in the United States.
“You’re about seven to eight times more likely to die in a farm accident than other jobs,” said Dr. Casper Bendixson, the director of the National Farm Medicine Center.
Accidents can include entrapment or entanglement with heavy farm equipment or confined spaces.
The Rural Firefighter Delivering Agricultural Safety and Health Training Course, or RF DASH, is looking to train firefighters to be more familiar with farm accidents.
“Today we have less farms and we have less firefighters,” said Bendixson. “20 to 30 years ago, you had a lot of first responders who were from the farm and they understood the farm environment.”