Worker trapped for hours in pile of beans after company ignored safety rules, feds say

Surrounded by hundreds of pounds of soybeans, the man was trapped. The mound of legumes, piled up to 30 feet high inside the silo, left him no escape.

The 43-year-old man, an employee of a grain bin operator in Westfield, Illinois, was stuck inside the storehouse for five hours in February before he was finally freed, according to a July 26 news release from the U.S. Department of Labor. He sustained minor injuries.

Leading up the accident, his employer, Littlejohn Grain Inc., ignored numerous federal safety standards, officials said.

Littlejohn Grain Inc. declined a request for comment from McClatchy News on July 26.

The man, who has not been identified, entered the bin in order to unclog beans, officials said. The hazardous process is known as “walking down grain.”

An investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) determined his employer allowed the man to enter the bin without necessary protective equipment, such as a harness. The company also failed to lock the machinery inside the bin and neglected to train employees on emergency procedures.

The company was cited for around a dozen violations for which OSHA proposed $272,957 in penalties.

“This worker avoided serious and deadly injuries too often suffered by workers who are trapped in a silo where flowing materials can completely engulf someone in a matter of seconds,” OSHA Area Director Edward Marshall in Peoria, Illinois, said in the release.

“The quick actions of his co-workers and first responders prevented him from suffering a fate that needlessly claimed the lives of too many agricultural workers every year,” Marshall said.

There were 24 fatalities involving confined spaces in the agriculture industry in 2022, according to a report from Purdue University.

“There were no fewer than 42 grain-related entrapments in 2022 representing a 44.8% increase over 2021,” the report found. “This was the highest number of grain entrapments in over a decade.”

Five months after the Westfield accident, another employee at the same Littlejohn Grain Inc. site became trapped in a grain bin, sustaining injuries that resulted in foot amputation, officials said.

Westfield is located about 200 miles south of Chicago.

This story was originally published July 26, 2023 at 11:42 AM with the headline "Worker trapped for hours in pile of beans after company ignored safety rules, feds say."