Penn State Live - Agriculture rescue program preserves farmers' lives

Agriculture rescue program preserves farmers' lives

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Davis Hill (in blue) at a tractor-rollover rescue demonstration at Penn State's Ag Progress Days.

In 2008, 44 people were killed in Pennsylvania farm- and agriculture-related accidents -- a sharp increase from previous years. Such statistics illustrate the need for farm-safety and farm-rescue training for emergency responders, according to an expert in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.

Since early 2001, Davis Hill, director of Penn State's Managing Agricultural Emergencies program, has been training emergency responders from fire-safety programs and emergency medical services to face the challenges of farm-related emergencies.

"Many of the responders who attend our program have good skills in managing car accidents and other more common emergencies, but farm trauma emergencies require a delicate approach," Hill said. "Farmers can be trapped for hours, and after the body endures trauma for a long period, it attempts to compensate for the injuries. Without proper initial care, the body’s compensatory mechanisms can be overwhelmed, leading to death."

"With proper treatment, most in this situation survive, but the body requires much slower care and removal," Hill added. "Unfortunately, fatalities and injuries occur when the same techniques used during a fresh accident are applied to an accident in which someone has been trapped for an extensive period. Our program is designed to prepare responders for these differences."

Statistics show that a majority of farm-related deaths are due to tractor overturns and machinery entanglements. The farm safety and rescue training program familiarizes emergency responders with these scenarios by contrasting them with typical accidents such as car crashes.

"We teach the differences between a typical rescue, such as extracting an individual from a car, and extracting someone from a tractor," said Hill. "How to shut off a farm machine, how to control the power that goes into the machine, and how to quickly find information about machines and contact the mechanics are just some of the factors we focus on."

"Another issue is dealing with the environmental hazards on a farm, such as manure and silo gas and grain dust, which can pose a serious threat to a responder's life. We also teach participants how to safely extract an individual from a silo or grain bin, which can be dangerous without proper training."

Since establishing the training classes in 2002, interest in the program has increased, with attendance numbers growing from 150 in 2002 to 2,000 in 2008.

"As interest in the program grows, we branch out into new training modules for responders, such as large-animal rescue," said Hill. "Our method is unique for responders because we go back to the injured person, their injuries and how to care for them, whereas a majority of training programs instead emphasize the techniques of using extraction tools and cutting open cars."

"There is no other agricultural safety program for emergency medical services and fire-safety responders, which makes our program vital to farmers," Hill explained. "Recently, one member of the training program encountered a man who had been stuck in a skid steer. The responder had been trained to deal with the issue, and was able to instruct everyone else in the crew to save the man's life."

While the program may focus on agriculture and farms in Pennsylvania, it has received recognition for preparing responders for nonfarm industrial emergencies such as machinery entanglements, both within and outside of the commonwealth.

"One of the program's strongest supporters rides a rescue truck in the Harlem for the New York City fire department," Hill said. "He often said that there were so many useful applications for the program beyond agriculture, especially with the amount of machinery in factories in New York City. Our training has been widely credited for making a difference in the successful outcome of patients involved in farm- and machinery-related injury, and there are a growing number of documented success stories as a result of the farm and agricultural emergency training that emergency responders have received."