It’s a beautiful Saturday afternoon in September at Dave Arp’s rural Davenport farm. But the firefighters gathered there aren’t paying any attention to the weather.
Their attention is focused on the flipped tractor laying in the barnyard, with someone pinned underneath.
After assessing the situation, the firefighters quickly get to work. One group begins ratcheting straps and installing struts around the tractor to stabilize it and ensure it doesn’t move any further. Another group runs back and forth from a trailer, bringing in blocks of wood. They begin placing the blocks underneath the tractor to start lifting it off the ground in what’s known as a cribbing rescue, taking care to place the blocks securely and with a solid base. Two firefighters operate an inflatable lifting bag, gaining a little more room underneath. On the other side of the tractor, another group begins digging dirt out from around and underneath the prone figure, hoping to create even more room to attempt an extrication.
It takes a good half hour of the firefighters working together for progress to emerge. The tractor lifts a few feet higher, and chunks of dirt fly, but eventually, they’re able to start wiggling the trapped figure free. After another 10 minutes, they’re able to slide the individual out and strap him to a backboard for transport.
But the firefighters don’t have any time to rest on their laurels. There’s someone else stuck in a combine head, and cows running loose on the interstate to worry about.
Welcome to farm extrication training.
The Maysville Fire Department hosted the training session, led by Mark Baker of Stateline Farm Rescue. The approximately 30 attendees included firefighters from across rural Scott County, as well as Bettendorf and Bennett. While the firefighters had a variety of experience with their respective departments, many had been volunteering for a year or less. Several Fire Explorers also attended.
Stateline Farm Rescue is based out of Orangeville, Ill., and the company teaches first responders across the Midwest rescue techniques for a variety of farm emergencies, including grain entrapment, tractor rollovers, and other equipment emergencies, such as combine and auger entrapment. Baker and instructors Scott Larson and Brian Larson have personal experience in both farming and emergency rescue.
Baker has been doing farm rescue training for about 35 years. He began following a tragic farm accident involving a family member. “We recognized that there was no real training for fire and rescue in the rural setting, or, for that matter, all fire services.” He said the company usually provides about two or three training sessions a month, although this August was a particularly busy month, with eight.
He said he likes doing training opportunities like the one hosted by Maysville that give multiple departments the chance to work together and share techniques.
Baker said he wants first responders to know, “We didn’t cause this accident; we’re here to fix it. So, get home safely. The other thing is, all these rescues are achievable, no matter how difficult they look. And they are. They’re very difficult. It’s a totally different animal and it’s not like your normal car accident. A tractor rollover is just such a hard animal. It’s so much time and a lot of resources, a lot of equipment. So, just keep working and you can get the job done and keep our farmers safe.”
The firefighters spent the morning in a classroom setting at the Maysville Fire Station. Following lunch, provided by MedForce Helicopter, the training moved to Arp’s farm for hands-on training. Arp is the fire chief in Maysville.
The event was sponsored by Corteva, Paul Meyer Chemical (PMC) and Madden Ag Services (Mike Mosier), River Valley Cooperative, Land-O-Lakes, The Cove Equipment, MedForce and Wulf Septic.
Arp began planning the training session in January. He said he attended a similar training session about two or three years ago in Illinois. He said even after being a firefighter for 26 years, he learned a lot from that presentation, and thought the training would be beneficial for Scott County first responders.
“Most of our rural departments are farming communities, and farming education really doesn’t get touched on a lot,” said Arp.
He said that while he’s been called out on a few farm extrications, he’s also seen car accidents involving drivers striking tractors on rural roads.
“The last one we had was a car rear ending a tractor with an implement. It could have been worse than it was. But it’s just good to have the knowledge of what needs to be done safely and how it needs to be done. And these guys do a tremendous job of teaching the class. It’s their specialty.”
From a mouse trap to a bear trap
The training session begins with instructor Scott Larson explaining how difficult some rescues can be. He places a dollar bill atop a mousetrap. He then hands a firefighter two pencils and tells her she can keep the money if she can get the bill out without setting off the trap.
It takes her a few minutes, carefully moving the bill from the corners, but she eventually frees the money.
Scott Larson explains this exercise is akin to a common car accident with someone trapped in a vehicle. He then unveils a bigger trap and places a $10 bill inside, telling the firefighter this exercise represents a car versus semi accident, with more extrication equipment. He also tells her she can call on any other firefighter in the room for mutual aid. A few minutes later: success.
But for his representation of a tractor rollover, Scott Larson brings out a bear trap.
“Are you comfortable with that one?” he asks the volunteer.
“No,” she sighs. “But I’m going to have to do it anyway.”
After some advice from Baker and another firefighter, she successfully completes the task without setting off the trap.
Baker asks the assembled firefighters how many of them are farmers. Just a few raise their hands.
“What I’m finding is, in the fire service, 20 years ago, half this room would have been farmers. But our farmers are getting more and more involved with what’s going on in their business, and they just don’t have the time to give back to their community. It’s not that they don’t care; they just don’t have time. So, thank you to those farmers that are in this room. Where you find your time, I have no clue.”
While Baker peppers his presentation with jokes, he also presents a more serious side of why farm accidents occur. Economics, long hours, unsafe habits, weather and location can all contribute to potential tragic outcomes.
He asks if any of the rural first responders have ever gone to the wrong location for a call. As chuckles ripple across the room, he says, “I swear, I once went to a code, and I started one.”
When discussing unsafe habits, Baker told the first responders that he doesn’t want them to think farmers are careless, but they do take shortcuts sometimes. “We are pushed, because we have lack of time, long hours. We can’t hire that extra guy, or we slip on ice. That’s where the accidents happen.”
He clicks over to a slide of a pie graph showing death by age in farming accidents. Of those listed, 22% are 65 and older, while 13% are age 14 and under.
“Those of you in this industry, are you hiring 14 and under? No. In the industry, are we hiring 65 and up? Probably not. But in the farm industry, who are these people? These are our grandkids, grandma and grandpa, mom and dad, who started the farm. It’s funny – in the ag industry, farmers don’t really think about retirement. Sixty-five and up is people who are just going to stay there and farm until they die. We have a customer that we chop for who is 94 years old. Still farming today, by himself, him and his wife.” Baker explained that for older farmers, accidents often happen because as we age, response times get slower.
While newer tractors have additional safety features that are intended to reduce the risk of a rollover, Baker said most farmers didn’t just get rid of their older tractors with narrower frames. These older tractors are still on farms, and in many cases, still in use.
Getting back to unsafe habits, Baker said sometimes farmers take shortcuts, including overloading their capacity, which can also lead to accidents. He also gave an example of an accident caused by a child riding in a tractor. A farmer got out to clear something out of the head of his combine. The child inside the cab started pushing buttons and the farmer got sucked in. This, again, was an older tractor without advanced safety features.
Baker told the story of “the worst call I was ever on.” There was a violent rollover, and the first responders rescued a farmer. But when they got to the hospital, the farmer’s wife asked about their child. No one at the scene had realized a child had also been riding in the tractor. “Don’t ever assume you have just one victim,” said Baker.
He said the average time it takes to conduct a tractor rollover rescue is 45 minutes to one hour when first responders are on scene and it takes about 10 rescuers to do the job quickly and efficiently. But during the average weekday, most rural departments won’t have 10 volunteers that can respond. As multiple departments will likely need to respond, Baker said first responders shouldn’t discount help from nearby farmers, who may not only know how the equipment works, but may also have tools to help with a rescue.
Baker said farm rescues can often be emotionally difficult, because the first responders frequently know the people they are rescuing. “You think about why we have such a high turnover in rural fire and EMS. It’s because we know these people. These people are our family, and we still have to treat them. You go on a call in a big city, they probably have no clue who these people are. They don’t recognize that face. They didn’t go to church last night or go to a ball game or see them at the restaurant. But these are people we know.” Baker said he knows a fire chief whose department was deeply affected by the death of a teenager in a farming accident. The teen was part of the department’s Explorers program, and many of the firefighters were too emotional to come back after the accident.
He also said, “If you get a 911 call to a farm, it’s bad. That’s it. How do I know it’s bad? If I get a call to a farm anywhere in our fire district, the first thing I’m going to do is call for an aircraft. And I’m probably going to call for mutual aid, and I’m probably going to call for another ambulance. I’ll do that before I even leave my driveway.
“If there’s an accident on a farm, they’ll take care of it … they’re not going to call 911. They’re going to take care of it themselves. They’re only going to make that call when it gets so bad, when they cannot get him out, then they’re going to call. When they call, they’re screwed.”
Hands-on training
Out at Arp’s farm, the firefighters are split into three groups, and rotate between a station with the flipped tractor, one with a combine head extraction, and one featuring a new tool for first responders in Scott County.
Arp oversees this new station. Scott County recently purchased a portable enclosure to help with the potential of animal transport accidents. If a trailer hauling livestock tips over on the interstate, the enclosure can be deployed to help emergency workers round up the animals and keep them contained until they can be transported from the scene. The system was purchased following a trailer rollover near Interstate 80 and Interstate 280. Following that accident, loose cattle were found as far away as Walcott.
Using some of his own cattle, Arp shows the first responders how the portable enclosure works. Fencing is hauled on a trailer to the scene, where it can be set up in several different configurations, and can be used to form a chute to guide animals onto a new trailer for removal.
While Brian Larson and Scott Larson lead the tractor rollover training, Baker talks with firefighters preparing to extract a mannequin from the combine head. One firefighter climbs into the cab of the tractor and turns it off, while others install cribbing behind the tires to ensure the apparatus is stable. Baker leads a discussion about how they might want to position the trapped figure to ensure that it is safe from additional injury during the removal. Three firefighters roll the mannequin onto its side and place a backboard behind it. Other firefighters bring in hydraulic tools to cut and widen the spaces between the headers. Progress is slow and noisy, but the attempt is successful.
Following the training session, Donahue firefighter Ken Schoenthaler said he appreciated the opportunity to do hands-on training on actual equipment. “This was a lot better than some in respect to the fact that we got to work on the header part of the combine. I think the best part of the training for me was the ability to get into the snapping units and the header on the combine.”
Schoenthaler said that, thankfully, he hasn’t had to respond to too many farming accidents in Donahue.
“What you usually end up with is hobby farmers, sometimes they have older tractors, sometimes with a belly mower on them or something like that. And they’ll get too close to the edge of a ditch. They’ll think they’re doing OK and then all of a sudden, it goes over on them. There’s no ROPS bar (Rollover Protective Structure) or anything like that. They’ll usually try to throw themselves or jump clear, but what usually happens is they’ll wind up under the back wheel. We’ve had that happen before, where we’ve had to get somebody out from behind the back wheel and they didn’t survive.”
Schoenthaler said newer tractors have more safety equipment that helps to contain the operator in case of an accident.
“This was a good learning experience,” he said. “Thanks to the Maysville Fire Department for sponsoring it, and all the people who worked with them to be able to get it done. It was well worth the day spent.”
Wendy Petersen and Chad Petersen with the New Liberty Fire Department also farm, and they said the training was important to them and their community.
“It’s personal for me,” said Chad Petersen, who is the New Liberty fire chief. “I had a really good friend of mine, about 20 years ago, I helped get out from underneath a tractor accident.
“But it’s a rural thing. We live in these communities and we’re passionate about it.”
“And it very well could be somebody that we know,” added Amy Shannon of the Long Grove Fire Department.
“You don’t want to feel helpless at the scene,” said Wendy Petersen.
Shannon and the Petersens said they also appreciated the opportunity to get hands-on training. Wendy Petersen said she particularly was glad to have the chance to practice cribbing.
Chad Petersen said it was also good to have the opportunity to work with other departments.
“Everybody has different towns that they have mutual aid with – for us, it would be Dixon and Bennett. But we’ve mutual aided over to Eldridge before. Especially, anymore in the rural area, it’s harder to come by the help that you really need to do some things.”
Wendy Petersen said the presentation “kept it real and brought it down to what really happens in the field instead of just the classroom.”
“They’ve done it, they’ve experienced it, which is huge,” said Chad Petersen. “It’s hard to go out there and teach if you’ve never lived it. And this whole group has brought up real experiences.”
For more information, visit www.statelinefarmrescue.com.