The safe handling of grain equipment can mean more than just keeping your digits; it can mean keeping your life.
The Grain Handling Safety Coalition of Springfield is teaming up with area farm bureaus today to hold a grain handling safety meeting at the Spoon River College Outreach Center in Macomb starting at 9 a.m.
Lynn McClure works at CHS Inc., a Pekin based grain company, and has worked for local cooperative grain companies for 35 years. He’ll also be presenting this morning.
McClure tells WGIL using augers and conveyers can be especially dangerous when guards are not installed.
“It’s easy to trip and fall and get your arm into something or if the grain is out of condition, there is chunks and people are trying to get grain to flow and they get too close to equipment,” McClure says. “Every year people get hurt.”
He says special grain equipment isn’t the only danger.
“Every year there are 10 to 20 people in the United States that die because they are in grain bins for one reason or another and the common thing is they get engulfed or trapped in the grain.”
McClure suggests using “lifelines” made of ropes and pulleys whenever going into a grain bin.
