‘Don’t hurry’

BRIDGEWATER — Dan Westphal sews a pouch on the front of each new pair of bib overalls he buys because one time, that pouch saved his life when he became trapped in a grain bin.

That pouch holds his cell phone and he hadn’t kept his cell phone in it before, but on a whim, he decided to that day. He’s glad he did.

Westphal won’t forget that day any time soon. Even though other news outlets have written on his fateful day before, on this National Farm Safety Week, he’s happy to talk about it again because of the farm safety lessons that can be learned from his situation that ended up having a happy ending.

Westphal said the bin was low on corn when he entered it. He was trying to get one more load to take to town before the end of the day.

He noticed there was a problem with the bin’s stirator, so Westphal climbed into the bin anyway. As he stepped in, he was pulled farther into the bin by the corn.

“There’s a difference between stepping into the corn and being pulled into the corn because as you think about it, when you put your foot into the corn, you make space for yourself. When you get pulled in, the corn’s filling every little space around you,” Wespthal said. “I wasn’t over my knees by any stretch of the imagination, but I could not pull myself free. What happened then was I was sitting there trying to figure out what I was going to do.”

Before he had entered the bin, as he got out of his pickup, Westphal put his billfold and his cell phone on the dash of his pickup and shut the door. But as he turned to go toward the bin, a second thought led him to go back and take out his cell phone and he placed it in the pocket of his bibs. With it he was able to call his wife, Pat, who summoned the help Dan needed to be freed.

“What I knew, what needed to happen, was to have the bin shut off so that it would quit pulling me down in,” Wespthal said.

Pat was working at the co-op in Fontanelle, which let her leave to go help Dan. They called Bridgewater Oil, where several rescue squad members worked. One member took their personal vehicle to the Westphal’s farm and began assisting as a large gathering of others and the ambulance arrived.

“Everyone heard the 9-1-1 call go out, so there must’ve been 50 people here to see if they could help,” Westphal said.

Westphal said the grain bin accident he survived without injury has given him lasting reminders of how to be safe on the farm.

“If it had been earlier in the day I would’ve turned the bin and stirator off. I wanted to get a load unloaded, so that gets me in the bin [with it turned on],” Westphal said. “Don’t hurry. Almost all accidents happen when you’re trying to hurry.”