May 02--A 64-year-old man was pulled to safety after being trapped inside a grain bin for nearly two hours Wednesday.
Gary Ginder of rural Jacksonville was conscious and talking when they brought him out of the steel bin located about one-half mile east of Woodson on the Woodson-Franklin blacktop.
"He was just about chest-high in the grain," Assistant Woodson Fire Chief Gary Marlow said. "He was having a little bit of numbness in his feet and legs and he was breathing OK."
Ginder was flown to St. John's Hospital in Springfield, where he was treated and released.
The Woodson Fire Department responded at 12:54 p.m. after two people reported a man with whom they were working was trapped in grain up to his chest inside a bin.
Murrayville and South Jacksonville fire departments provided mutual aid, including South Jacksonville's aerial ladder truck, which was used to lower Ginder to the ground after he was pulled with ropes and a harness out of a hole at the top of the grain bin.
Bartlett Grain Co. employees also responded to assist the firefighters in the use of a new rescue tube the company recently donated to the South Jacksonville Fire Department. This rescue was the first time the tube was used.
Ginder had gone inside to break up corn that had crusted over a sump, Marlow said.
"The crust gave away. You don't know what is under it. You go down into the grain and it just sucks you in," Marlow said. "The bad thing about corn like that is it's like quicksand. The more you move the more it will suck you down in there. So as still as you can keep the subject, the better off it is."
Marlow estimated the grain was 6 to 7 feet high from the bottom of the bin.
"The gentlemen who were working here, one of the first things they did was put a rope around him so he wouldn't (sink) any farther," Marlow said.
Murrayville Fire Chief John Sonneborn and South Jacksonville firefighter and paramedic Josh Jennings entered the grain bin through the bottom hole on the roof and then climbed down a ladder inside to reach him.
"We lowered the new rescue tube ... in there in sections and put it around him and then (Sonneborn and Jennings) had to dig the subject out so far," Marlow said.
Marlow and Woodson firefighter Bob Schwalb, who were outside at the hole on top of the bin, lifted the man up with ropes and a harness.
"We had ropes hooked to the harness and we were lifting him up out of there as they were digging him out," Marlow said.
Marlow said the grain bin rescue was the first for the Woodson Fire Department.
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