Rescue in action
Agriculture is one of the deadliest industries in the world. A fatality rate of about 23 deaths per 100,000 workers currently exists in the United States. A common culprit of this high number? Grain entrapment fatalities.
Charles Schwab, professor at ISU ABE, is exploring what happens to workers after they have been trapped in a storage bin or silo. This includes the forces at work on a victim as that victim is pulled down by the shifting movement of the grain and the work of mechanical implements, such as augers.
Schwab and his team hope that, by understanding the fatal nature of these forces, they can formulate better ways to save victims trapped in grain storage units.
"The forces imposed on a victim entrapped in a grain-filled storage unit are fast-acting and deadly," says Schwab. "In this project, we want to show how different body types influence extraction forces and what new rescue methods could be the safest, fastest and most efficient."
