Following the deaths of two farmers who reportedly suffocated in separate grain bin accidents, agricultural safety experts at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, are urging rural workers to take extra precautions while vacuuming grain this harvest season

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), August, 2005

Following the deaths of two farmers who reportedly suffocated in separate grain bin accidents, agricultural safety experts at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, are urging rural workers to take extra precautions while vacuuming grain this harvest season. Suffocation can occur when corn lodged at the sides of a bin or in a spoiled column in the middle collapses and covers the individual.

Operators can lose control of the intake nozzle, theoretically creating a two-cubic-foot hole underfoot every second. Meanwhile, the operator, pulling upward on the nozzle, is forced downward into the cavity where the grain used to be.