Exclusive: Iowa Man Explains How He Miraculously Walked Out of a Grain Bin After Frightening 2-Hour Entrapment
USFR-Iowa Close Calls Grain Bin Rescue
Last week marked only the second time Justin Hudson and Mark Wilson have met. Hudson is a paramedic with the Centerville, Iowa, Fire Rescue, and Mark Wilson works on a local farm.
“You look a little bit different from the last time I saw you,” Hudson told Wilson.
“I appreciate everything that you did,” replied Wilson.
The first time Wilson and Hudson had met was a week prior on August 22, 2022, when Wilson was trapped inside a grain bin located outside of Moravia, Iowa.
“The beans on the north side of the bin were up to the eave, and I was trying to get as much as I could off the north side,” says Wilson. “But I ran out of a grain vac tube, it was as far as I could go. Then I tried to turn around and suck some around the door so we could get another door open. And that's when things went bad.”
Soybeans Started Surrounding Wilson
Wilson has cleaned out grain bins more times than he can even count, but that day, he says, soybeans suddenly started to cave in around him.
“I knew I couldn't ever free myself,” he remembers. “That inside door was open, and I grabbed ahold of it. And there was so much pressure that it was all I could do to hang on to that door,” says Wilson.
With grain up to his neck, and his hands still holding onto the door, Wilson was stuck. But then, he had an idea on how to get someone’s attention.
The Stick
“There was a stick inside the bin, and I was able to kind of lunge for it.With the length of it, I got it out the door about a foot, and I was just going like that (waving it?) and he finally saw it and shut the grain vac down,” Wilson remembers.
Wilson admits he didn’t even want to take his hand off the door to grab the stick, as he was afraid he would sink even more. However, he knew he had to get help as the pressure from the grain was growing more intense.
“It's hard to explain but there was so much pressure around me. It's just hard to explain,” says Wilson.
Call for Help
After trying a few things to help free Wilson, his co-workers called 911.
“The call went out, it was for a grain bin entrapment,” says Ryan Moore, a captain with the Centerville Fire Department and volunteer firefighter in Moravia. “He was responsive, hanging on to a rope. There were a couple farmers in there that had gotten some metal up behind him to help with the grain sloughing off so it wouldn't cover him up and had gotten a rope around him.”
Wilson was located close to the door inside the grain bin, which also made the situation tricky.
“He was just approximately 2 feet in the bin from the door, so he had about 2 feet of grain between him and the doorway. And then it went up about 25 feet behind us,” explains Moore.
Wilson Remained Calm
Careful to not walk on the grain and cause more grain to cave in, Moore started asking questions of the victim.
“As soon as I started talking to him, he's responding with just a calm demeanor and everything. He's not getting his heart rate up. He's not heavy breathing or anything. And I thought this was really good,” Moore recalls. “You try to remind them every once and awhile to stay calm, but with Mark I didn't really have to because he was already calm.”
“When I first got in the grain bin I had a dust mask on, but then after awhile, they can see that I needed some oxygen and so they pulled that off,” says Wilson. They just said, ‘Yeah, we're going to get you out.’ And I believed them.”
Paramedics Arrive on the Scene
As Wilson was given the reassurance that the rescue team was going to get him out safely, he continued to stay calm. In the meantime, Moore called outside for a grain bin rescue tube to help alleviate the pressure around Wilson.
“As soon as we got the grain tube around him, about that time is when the ambulance and the paramedics showed up, and he asked for a report,” says Moore.
“That day I was actually working for Centerville Fire Rescue,” says Hudson. “So, I was there as a paramedic. I was there for the EMS side of everything that was going on.”
Hudson is also a volunteer firefighter who had been trained multiple times on grain bin rescues, but this was his first.
“Wilson was by this door, but he's a couple of feet from the door, and he's got grain all around him. He's buried up to his neck,” says Hudson. “So, I can't get to him. I can't do anything. I can't give him any medications. I can't necessarily get in there and start an IV on him.”
A Problem Securing the Grain Rescue Tube
As they tried to get the rescue tube around Wilson, the team discovered there was a problem.
“The grain vac tube was next to me, and that prevented them from getting the rescue tube down further,” says Wilson. “So, the beans that we were taking out, they were coming in about as fast underneath with all that pressure. It was kind of like flowing water.”
“With him being so far deep in our tube for the auger rescue equipment, I had to punt on that one and do a little different method,” says Moore. “We ended up having to auger it out and hold the bucket inside the tube instead of augering outside the rescue tube like it’s designed to do. We did it a little different, and it worked for a little bit, but then I think Mark came up with the idea for somebody to go get a shop vac.”
Wilson was able to use the shop vac to help relieve the pressure around his waist, but they then ran into another roadblock.
“Because once we got him loose enough, we were now below our grain bin rescue tube, so the grain from the backside that was piled up so high started sloughing off under the grain bin tube,” says Moore.
Forced to Cut Holes in Grain Bin
That’s when the team was forced to cut holes in the grain bin, with the first one across from the doorway.
“They did that, and then in the process of cutting the third hole, somebody called for another grain vac,” says Moore. “We got it in there. And now we're vacuuming on the backside of the tube from two different holes, and it allowed us to gain on the falling grain.”
Between Moravia, Centerville and other fire departments, there were nearly 30 personnel on-site, all working to free Wilson.
“I've done enough rescues in different fashions that nothing ever goes the way you train, and you have to have a backup plan and a backup plan for your backup plan,” Moore says.
“Ryan was in there, and a co-worker was in there, and he was really valuable, because he kind of understood how grain flows,” says Wilson. “He saved my life. They all saved my life.”
Wilson Walked Out of the Grain Bin
Wilson walked out of the grain bin, and with a life flight on standby for nearly two hours, Wilson was taken to a Des Moines hospital out of precaution.
“I had so many beans in my pockets up there in the ER, and the beans were everywhere. I apologized, and they said, ‘Well, we've had this happen before, not that long ago, but you came out a lot better than the other gentleman.’ I was just lucky; thankful to be alive.”
Lucky to Be Alive
With soybeans still scattered on the floor of the fire department, there are constant reminders of the remarkable rescue that happened on August 22, as even those who rescued Wilson are still surprised he was able to go home from the hospital the night of the accident.
“I had in my head that ‘OK, we'll get this guy out. That's not the end of it, and it's going to go bad.’ But it didn’t,” says Hudson.
Wilson’s close call is now a story of survival, and one the fire and rescue teams will never forget.
