Cypress County to host a grain bin safety course

By Justin Seward

Commentator/Courier

Cypress County will be hosting a grain bin safety course later this month.
The first day is all classroom based and day two is hands on training.
The Canadian Agriculture Safety Association teaches firefighters about the conditions and equipment used in grain handling and storage and how that may cause grain entrapment situations or injuries.
“The (hands on) training is in a unit—it’s basically a grain bin— with all the safety devices of course, so you can insert a person into the grain and essentially they’re trapped,” said John McBain, the county’s deputy fire chief.
“We can learn to safely extract them from the grain without causing any harm to them or the rescuers. And of course the safety to the rescuers and how they can stay on top of the grain, how they can handle the grain. The person being trapped also gets the feeling of actually knowing what it’s like being trapped in grain.
Each participant in the hands-on training will get the opportunity to be a rescuer and or the trapped person.
“There are a bunch of different safety features that we follow and use to maintain the safety of that environment so that there will be no harm come to that person that is trapped in the grain,” he said.
“I think pretty much everybody that has done it before has felt that during part of the grain bin course training, they do feel quite safe.”
The course will be for the county’s emergency services personnel on March 27-28 at the Dunmore fire hall.
Depending on numbers, spots could potentially come open for neighbouring municipalities, added McBain.
Cypress County last hosted the course in 2019.
McBain said, “It’s just another level of service we can provide to our community.”