The deceased were as brothers Gary, Todd and Brad Wuebker. Rescue crews found them unconscious on their family’s farm.
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Believe it or not, this isn't as uncommon as you might think. When I was living in California, I've heard of this happening several times on those huge dairies they have there.
It always seems to happen with multiple deaths - the guy that fell into the pit and the person(s) trying to rescue him.
Happens....but it's still a shitty way to go....
ReplyDeleteYup, those pits are a danger. These guys had to know so what to hell were they thinking?
ReplyDeleteOn one of the Big dairies a couple years back they had a hired hand leave and a skidsteer came up gone at the same time . well they thought Pablo had swiped it , but six months later as they were pumping out the lagoon they found it. But by then it was junk .
ReplyDeleteI bet Pablo wasn't in that great of shape either.
Deleteno, he dumped in the lagoon , grabbed his shit and split . Probably figured he would get fired over it and said fuck it and left
DeleteOver come by fumes? The smell of cow shit won't kill you. It's the lack of oxygen that gets you. Nitrogen settles in those pits and drives the oxygen out. If you see someone unconcious in a pit, for fuck sake don't go down and get them.
ReplyDeleteDaryl
No but the h2s from the manure can drop you if its above 10ppm.
DeleteExile1981
The average death rate in confined space fatalities is somewhere around 2.5 or so. The first guy goes in, gets overcome by fumes (methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide are all very common and also displace oxygen which can render you unconscious in seconds) (additional aside, fumes are just a different word for gasses), a buddy, coworker, or family member sees them and goes in for a rescue, etc. until someone with training recognizes the hazard and uses a phone to call for qualified help. I was trained for Hazmat, confined space entry, rescue, and recovery.
ReplyDeleteUsed to work in a pulp mill.
DeleteUnbleached pulp is notorious for producing H2S, so we were all trained to use SCBA gear.
There was also SO2, CL2, and CLO2 to deal with.
The brothers were in turd together....
ReplyDeleteNow that was not only clever but funny as hell.
DeleteHad some hunting property near a large dairy farm in NY along the Vermont border. 2 men died and a third one came close in a manure pit. Confined Space training might have prevented this tragedy.
ReplyDeleteFoundry work changed over the years, to require confined space training. Air monitoring, with Davit arms setup and an attendant, along with forms filled out, etc., in order to avoid just such an incident. We had Argon and Nitrogen that we used in processing steel, and deep pits under our vessels, that had the potential for filling with these gasses, along with CO and CO2. The danger is always there, and we were continuously taking refresher training, for things like confined space, hazmat, lockout/tagout, first aid, fire suppression, etc.
DeleteWorking in a shop is not like it was in 1978 when I first started. And the injuries have gotten less serious as well. Of course, there are still people who should never step foot in a shop, they are just not made to do that kind of work. I have actually seen people who were working with a huge band saw, who broke the blade, a 1 inch wide blade, probably 10 feet in circumference, and reach to grab it, while the wheels were still spinning. I had to yell at them, from several feet away, to make them stop, and explain that they could lose their entire hand from the palm and out, if the wheel grabbed the blade.
When I hired in, there were maybe 35 workers there, but when I left, there were 120 or so. And I saw some really horrific injuries, usually due to workers being careless, or just plain stupid.
A co worker was in the Air Force, and they had a fellow wing wiper go awol. They found him, a year or so later, when they drained a fuel tank of a C 130, and there he was, or at least, his skeleton, in the bottom of the fuel tank. They figure he fell in, and lacking O2, passed out and drowned.
The difference between your local autoshop or factory work is that most Agricultural businesses are more or less exempt from OSHA regulation. The majority of farm businesses are also family owned and operated. Even very large dairies. Not to say that they should be required to participate in Osha, but they tend to have more injuries and fatalities than they would if there were better safety protocols and respect for the risks of agricultural work. Agriculture is typically listed as third or fourth on the lists of most dangerous industries, behind mining, fishing and forestry.
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, these types of closed space death used to be more common when more farms still used the older technologyof upright silos to store their forages. Currently most death like this are associated with below grade manure storage
Off topic but that seems like a cheap and effective way to pff the baddies on death row
ReplyDeleteMore than 20 years ago in Texas a Dutch farmer's son went missing. A search party gathered near the barn, and just as they were about to move out, somebody asked what that red rag was in the settlement pond. Beneath the rag was a cement block, and beneath that was the missing young man. Girl dumped him, he decided to end it all, tied the cement block to his chest and laid down in the water and stuff. That is supposedly the second-most suicide tool in the Netherlands, after stepping in front of a big truck. You have to be real serious to lie down in a settlement pond and wait for s't water to kill you.
ReplyDeleteIn the NE, it's called 'dead air'. It's creepy as fuck, because it nails you with almost zero odor, and totally zero oxygen. ALL of the utility companies here are REQUIRED to run ditch witches you keep fresh air in the work areas.
ReplyDeleteAsk Verizon. They fucked up, and paid out almost 10m over not supplying a $2000 FAN.
Work in utility vaults also has a special exemption from standard confined space requirements. They are allowed to work by themselves with no attendant or site supervisor (that can be one person btw). In exchange, they have to continuously ventilate the space. Not providing the fans was essentially telling OSHA "Yeah, we are cool with killing all these guys.".
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