Delaware Farmworker Crushed In Grain Bin At Evans Farm; OSHA Investigates

A worker at Evans Farm in Bridgeville, Delaware was crushed and killed in April when several thousand tons of soybeans broke free after he opened the side cover of a grain bin. It was Delaware's first grain bin fatality in nearly two decades.

The Delaware State Police's Criminal Investigations Unit responded to the scene. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration opened a parallel investigation.

The worker's name has not been released by the family.

How grain kills

Grain in storage doesn't behave like a solid pile. It behaves like a fluid under pressure. When a side cover or unloading auger is opened, the stored grain can flow in a sudden cascade. Workers can be engulfed in seconds. Inside the bin, the weight of the grain makes a body almost impossible to remove without specialized rescue equipment, and survival times are measured in minutes.

OSHA classifies grain handling as one of the most dangerous industries in the country. The agency lists engulfment, falls, fires, explosions, and entanglement in equipment as the top hazards. Engulfment kills the most.

The required safeguards under federal regulations are specific: workers must be tested for oxygen levels before entry, must be tied off with a body harness and lifeline, must have a rescue observer outside the bin, and must follow lockout-tagout on equipment that could cause grain movement.

It is unclear which of those protections were in place at Evans Farm.

The small-farm exemption

This is the part the regulators don't always lead with. OSHA's authority to inspect small farms is restricted by a long-standing appropriations rider that exempts farms with ten or fewer employees from most inspections — unless the farm has a temporary labor camp.

ProPublica's reporting on Wisconsin dairy farms documented how that exemption has resulted in worker deaths going uninvestigated for years. Delaware farmworker advocates raised the same point this month: when the worker is hourly, when the farm is small, when the protections aren't enforced, the deaths look like accidents instead of policy failures.

Evans Farm's size and inspection history have not been publicly confirmed.

What advocates are calling for

The Delaware Farm Bureau and several local agricultural extension services have called for required grain bin safety training across the state. Bridgeville-area farmers held a public meeting two weeks after the death.

Rescue equipment for grain engulfments — including grain rescue tubes — is available through several fire departments but is not standard at most rural agencies. Several Delaware fire companies have launched fundraising drives to purchase the equipment.

OSHA's investigation is ongoing. We'll publish more as findings are released.