Grain bin accidents remain deadly. One farmer hopes his family’s story can help.

Discover the tragic impact of grain bin accidents and how one farmer’s family is sharing their story to raise awareness and promote safety measures to prevent future tragedies.

 Story by Estefanía Pinto Ruiz, KWQC

BLUE MOUND, Illinois — Tom Ritter and his son, Cory, had worked together with their families every harvest season for the past 20 years.

“My daughter loved to ride in the semi during harvest with my dad,” said Cory. “I remember seeing them leave the field together, and just the time that he took and the importance that he put on spending that quality time with family.”

But last year’s harvest was different; instead of Tom and Cory working together, tragedy hit the family on Aug. 20.

“Someone drove by and saw the semi was overflowing. The corn was still coming out, but it was overflowing, and thought this isn’t good and started knocking on doors,” Cory said. “My mother’s house is just a couple of doors in town, and they knocked on her door, and she called me and had a feeling we knew what happened”.

The area around the Ritter family farm in Blue Mound was surrounded by neighbors, police and firefighters trying to find Tom. 

It turned out that he had gone inside the grain bin to fix a piece of equipment. While he was working on it, the grain suddenly shifted and began to move, trapping him.

“I still have the mental image of all these neighbors that just showed up. It was a hot day, sweating and scooping as hard as they could, trying to see if we could save him,” said Cory.

Tom was found against one of the walls of the grain bin. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it. 

Half of grain bin accidents are still fatal

A recent report from Purdue University shows these types of accidents are up. In 2024, 34 grain bin entrapment cases occurred compared to 27 in 2023, representing a 25% increase.

Dr. Salah Issa, an assistant professor and extension specialist at the University of Illinois, said data on grain bin accidents is hard to come by. 

“The way we collect this data is mostly through news clippings. It’s hard to put a pin on where they’re occurring exactly, like if there is a type of grain bin where they occur more frequently than others,” he said.

According to Issa, grain storage in the 1960s was very different from today’s systems. Storage facilities were generally smaller and less mechanized before the widespread use of the large steel grain bins and grain-handling equipment common on many farms today. The earliest documented grain-bin entrapment case occurred in 1964.

When a farmer is trapped in a grain bin, the odds of their survival are poor. Historically, 70% of accidents were fatal, Issa said.

That fatality rate has come down, but it remains high

”Strong efforts in training for rescue personnel have contributed to the reduction of the severity,” Issa said. But he adds that about 20 to 40 people die in grain bins annually, about half of all accidents.

 “Fifty percent is pretty bad.”

Issa said weather and spoiled grain play a role in most accidents. Grain can get too wet and clump at the bottom, or crust on top — creating a false sense of security for workers who walk on the surface.

“This happened a while ago, with a father and son,” he said. “A young boy went inside a grain bin that had a crust that had formed. The kid runs across the grain bin, and nothing happens, and the farmer runs after him, and when he reaches the middle, it breaks and he falls through it and ends up losing his life.”

Grain can also build up on one side of a bin and collapse like an avalanche, burying a worker.

Young and older workers are at the highest risk, about half of accidents involve people older than 60 and younger than 21.

“In 2010, we had a really bad case where three boys under the age of 20, I think one or two of them were 14 or 15, they ended up drowning,” Dr. Issa said.

Regulatory gaps leave many farms without oversight

Grain bin safety training is offered by universities, industry groups and safety organizations across the country. Still, reaching every farming operation remains a challenge.

Farms with fewer than 10 employees are exempt from federal safety standards, and the lack of oversight also extends to young family members who help on the farm.

“It’s a devastating issue, and it should never happen,” Issa said. “Because of the frequency rate, it’s very easy to run into the thought that this is not going happen to me until it ends up happening to you.”

Aaron Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union, said more regulation would help, but that added rules and costs would likely face pushback from farmers.

“Most farmers don’t appreciate a more regulatory framework, and it is difficult to implement and expensive to implement,” he said. “All the more reason before we get to that point that we expand on our efforts to educate farmers, to use voluntary incentives to put these things in place — and that really is important.”

As for Cory, he is unsure about regulation because every farm has its own unique situation.

“I don’t know if I’m for regulation because every farm is different, every situation is different,” Cory said.

For him, it’s more about slowing down and paying attention.

“Is it a dangerous job on the farm? Yes. Is it the most dangerous job on the farm? I don’t know. But it’s just, it’s all about people thinking twice, and that’s what it really takes,” he said.

New safety tools help, but prevention remains the best defense

Issa said that 95% of these incidents are preventable and that prevention starts by installing systems in or near grain bins that can safely break up clumps and address grain-flow problems from outside the bin.

An alternate solution that Issa and his team have researched is using compressed air to break up grain clumps from outside the bin, though the method can be time-consuming because it only breaks up clumps near the outlet, and the use of high-pressure compressed air requires strict safety precautions.

Issa said that as a last resort, if someone needs to enter a grain bin, all equipment should be shut off and disconnected from its power source. The equipment should also be locked and tagged so it cannot be turned on while someone is inside the bin. He added that workers should wear a harness and have a spotter outside the bin watching them.

“I have a story of three people who went into repair a grain bin, and a trucker came by not knowing they were in there and pulled out grain, and they ended up drowning,” said Issa.

California and Indiana have their own state workplace safety programs that enforce grain-bin safety regulations. In California, if someone needs to enter a grain bin, written authorization from a supervisor is required, or a supervisor must be present during the entire operation. California’s regulations also require multiple safety procedures to be followed before entering the bin.

“They will have to install anchor points on the grain bin if the grain bin is older. If it’s newer, then there are anchor points there already,” said Issa. “When they’re installing the anchor points, they should work with a structural engineer so they can tell them how much weight this can support. They need an anchor point that supports at a minimum 1,000 pounds of force, but actually more is recommended.” 

In Nebraska, farmers can rent a robot called Grain Weevil that can be used while filling grain bins to help prevent fines — damaged kernels that tend to cluster in the center —  from building up and causing grain to spoil faster. The robot can also break up crusted grain while the bin is being emptied, reducing the need for farmers to enter the bin.

As for Cory Ritter, he continues honoring his dad’s legacy by prioritizing family while juggling everything else. In the middle of a day packed with work and interviews for this story, he still made time to watch his daughter compete in a high school track competition before leaving on a six-hour drive for work that stretched into the early morning hours.

“I remember what my dad told me: The job will get done. The important thing is to come home to your family every night,” said Cory. “It all starts with the personal responsibility of slowing down and thinking about what you’re doing, and that’s why I wanted to share this story, so that other people can think about that.”

And doing things even if they are hard. 

“It’s hard to drive past this (the grain bin) and still see these holes inside, but I looked at it in the fall, especially as all the harvest traffic goes by this road to our local co-op,” said Cory. “I told myself it’s a reminder for everybody how fast accidents can happen and that take time to slow down and be safe.”

This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.

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