Grain silo avalanche that killed father and son is commonplace on US farms

The tragic deaths of a Wisconsin dairy farmer and his 14-year-old son last week in grain silo avalanche sent a familiar chill through America's agriculture community, whose members know too well the grim dangers of of life on the family farm.

While entanglements with machines or falls are generally seen as the most frequent cause of injury or death on farms, grain silo avalanches – whether inside the silo itself or from a structural collapse – happen almost on a daily basis, experts say.

“The accident in Wisconsin over the weekend is just another wake up call that there are inherent dangers in production agriculture,” Keith Bolsen, a former professor of animal sciences and industry at Kansas State University and the founder of the Keith Bolsen Silage Safety Foundation, told Fox News. “Silage and farming can be very dangerous.”

The dangers posed by silage collapses in silos have led the farming industry to move away from the towering structures toward storage in bunkers and large piles. Even so, experts say, these more current practices pose risks of large chunks of the grain caving in and burying farmers – and in some cases even large farm equipment – under numerous tons of feed.

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http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/03/27/wisconsin-grain-silo-avalanche-that-killed-father-and-son-is-commonplace-on-us-farms.html