They are the types of calls likely to engage rescue workers for hours, sometimes days — incidents of entrapment. Victims caught within or beneath farm equipment. Silo fires, towering cylinders of flames and smoke. The destination is often in isolated areas, from mining operations like Quecreek to rural cornfields, where a man became trapped in an auger last month. Specialized equipment may be required, or assembled, piecemeal, on site.
In western Pennsylvania, firefighters are commonly called to farming accidents. They may find someone lying crushed beneath a tractor, or with a limb caught in a boring tool. And they may or may not have the equipment, manpower and experience to best address the situation.
What they do have, a Somerset County fire department wants its brethren to know, is a local resource. The New Centerville and Rural Volunteer Fire Co. has a farm rescue unit but, according to longtime firefighter and training officer Jim Saylor, other departments "often don't realize we are available."
Saylor, and the department's other active firefighters, want to spread word of their various gear and training, in the hope that they will be more frequently — and more quickly — called. To date this year, they have responded to five farming emergencies.
"We were called to Quecreek Mine," said fire Chief Michael Ogline, "and this is what we were called for."
He gestured to what he called "confined space" equipment, which might also help fight silo fires. The equipment is a system in which firefighters wear masks supplied with air from as far away from a fire truck as 350 feet.
Although the department was not called into action at the July incident in which nine miners were trapped for three days, members were on standby for all but 12 hours, Ogline said.
The department has eight members trained in confined-space rescues, a number Ogline hopes to double within a year. The team can work as a relay, allowing rescue workers to stay on scene for long periods of time.
Members of the department try to hold regular practice drills on various firefighting skills. Some have trained through FARMEDIC, a rural rescue training system operated by Alfred State College in New York state, or Bucks County Community College's fire training program.
"One thing we like to stress to people is that it's a speciality," Ogline said, "just like hazmat (hazardous materials). ... It's not something every department is familiar with."
The department has had a farm rescue team for about 20 years, Saylor said. "Each year, I think, depending on the situation," he said, "we get a little wiser."
The department recently acquired a thermal imaging camera, which Ogline now says he does not know how the department did without. It's a piece of equipment on many fire departments' wish lists, and one the department's busy ladies' auxiliary helped them to obtain.
Demonstrating the $20,000 piece of equipment, Ogline showed how quickly it can pick out a person, even in a smoke-filled room, even a child hiding under a bed.
Ogline said the department is ready and willing to travel.
"If it's a matter of taking the truck 100 miles from the station, we will do it," he said.
DANGEROUS WORK
The federal Department of Labor frequently places farming on its lists of most dangerous occupations.
Last month, Robert Hoover, 65, was injured when his left leg became trapped in an auger while he was greasing the machine in an isolated Donegal Township cornfield.
In 1994, a more serious auger accident severed Mt. Pleasant Area High School teacher and farmer William Frye's lower right leg. What Frye then termed "a freak accident" led to his being trapped for more than three hours. The auger was cut with an air chisel. Frye was strapped into a harness and lowered to the ground on rigging secured by members of a rope team.
In March 2000, Max Krempasky, 75, of South Huntingdon Township, died when a tractor rolled onto him as he was digging a ditch on his farm. The tractor's brake apparently disengaged and the tractor rolled down a slight grade onto him.
Manufacturers have installed roll-over protection devices on newer equipment. And newer equipment is also likely to come with seat belts, which can help keep a driver from being ejected from moving equipment. But as several firefighters in the farming community of New Centerville pointed out, farmers often hang onto their old equipment as long as possible.
At about the same time Krempasky was killed, Andrew Isenberg, 23, an Indiana County farmer, died when he fell into a manure spreader while working in Rayne Township. Police said he apparently slipped into the spreader and became pinned in the machine.
In late October, a silo fire burned for more than a day at the Gutchess Hardwoods plant in Latrobe. Westmoreland County Department of Public Safety spokesman Dan Stevens said the fire "affected 75 percent of the county's volunteer fire companies in some way, shape or form," including those that served in stand-by capacities or answered other emergency calls. A thermal imaging camera scanned the structure before firefighters finally cleared the scene.
The New Centerville department has fought some silo fires, entering the structures if possible and directing water nozzles underground, where such fires often start. Another useful piece of equipment is an aerated metal spear, which can be jammed into the ground to release water beneath the surface.
If they enter the silo, Saylor said, "No one else can see us. If it (seems) like it might collapse, we don't put anybody into it. We weigh the options, how close to (other buildings) it is."
Larry Saylor, Jim Saylor's brother , is also an active firefighter with the department.
"I've been up in probably 12 silo fires," Larry Saylor said. "Every one is different."
The department also has a supply of air bags, stacked like squares of rubber in the back of a truck, able to inflate and raise equipment ranging from one to 79 tons.
They practiced using the 79-ton bag on a military tank.
"It just played with it," Jim Saylor said, hoisting the vehicle far enough off the ground to allow retrieval of anyone trapped beneath.
The smaller ones might be used to spread the rolls of a corn picker, inflating far enough to slide a person's hand out.
Saylor noted that responding to farm accidents is different from responding to vehicular accidents. The Jaws of Life tool, designed to cut through automotive sheet metal, may not even dent more sturdy farm equipment.
Farm equipment, Jim Saylor said, is built to last a lifetime. It may have to be disassembled to free a victim, which is where knowledge of farm equipment can become a matter of life and death.
New Centerville firefighter Craig Waltermyre is a salesman for a local John Deere dealership. The company has two full-service trucks, and service technicians are willing to provide technical support, either helping those in the field who can most quickly render aid, or coming to the scene.
"It helps," Waltermyre said. "Nobody knows everything, but everyone knows a little bit. ... Farm equipment is designed for ripping, cutting, tearing, shredding. It's not designed to be gentle. Once you get a person into this type of equipment, it's not easy to get them back out. ... The biggest thing about farm rescue is to cause as little trauma (as possible). The equipment at that point is immaterial. You tear apart what you can."
Waltermyre estimated that limbs caught in corn pickers and equipment roll-overs were the most common types of farm accidents. And he expressed a personal disdain for some adults' habit of driving lawn mowers with children seated on their laps, accidents, he believes, waiting to happen.
The department does not claim to have all answers for all accidents. But the active members hope other area departments will think about — and contact — them, when certain incidents occur.
"We don't have everything for farm rescue," Jim Saylor said. "But we have a lot of people with certain skills and resources. ... As a team effort, working together with other departments, we can get the job done and done safely."
