DES MOINES, Iowa — This past Saturday local first responders with New Haven Volunteer Fire Department were awarded a grain rescue tube and specialized training from Nationwide and Frazer Insurance Agency through Nationwide’s Grain Bin Safety advocacy campaign. The rescue tube will be used to help protect against grain entrapments, which result in dozens of deaths across rural America each year and spiked in 2019 and 2020.

Every year, thousands of farmers and commercial grain handlers risk their lives by entering grain bins to remove clumped or rotted grain. As rural communities have come to know all too well, the risks of entering grain bins continue to be overlooked.

New Haven Volunteer Fire Department is one of 41 fire departments to receive these resources in an evening in Des Moines.

The grain rescue tube delivery and training was conducted by the National Education Center for Agricultural Safety (NECAS), and included simulations of entrapments and rescues using a state-of-the-art grain entrapment simulator, which is loaded on a trailer and able to hold about 100 bushels of grain.

Since 2014, at least four fire departments have put the tubes and training to use to save the lives of farmers trapped in grain bins.

To learn more visit thinkgrainbinsafety.com.