I live in an area where grains are a big part of the agricultural industry and I frequently see story lines like [this one here](https://www.kait8.com/2022/11/22/crews-responding-grain-bin-rescue/). What makes these storage units and/or the grain inside them so dangerous?
In: 9
A grain silo is full of grain, and they’re pretty tall. Grain is kind of a funny material – it’ll pack down pretty dense (like sand,) but can have voids form in it. If you fall into a void, you can end up getting trapped inside the grain, and you can actually suffocate – it’s basically like being buried alive.
Adding to suffocation, grain silos are also full of grain dust, for reasons to do with “how burning happens” dry grain burns really well, but dry grain dust burns explosively. Grain dust fires are massive concern as well.
A silo is a confined space. All confined spaces have hazards of some type.
A grain silo’s main hazard is dust. This dust is flammable and can explode.
Any material stored in a silo is subject to clogging up when that material is being released from storage. Clogged up silo’s have to be cleaned out by workers and sometimes the grain/material shifts enough to free flow around any workers inside the silo. This happens so quick that the workers can be completely covered up by the grain/material.
people think that since grain is a solid material, they can just stand on top of a bunch of grain and walk on it and stuff. but actually grain is more like quicksand. you jump in and it drags you under and then you suffocate and die.
It’s called corn drowning. More like suffocating though. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/12/drowning-in-corn/383455/
Latest Answers