Fire and rescue workers from 32 departments across Wisconsin learned hands-on techniques to handle agriculture emergencies, and 14 individuals learned how to teach rescue techniques to other emergency responders during the 2022 Agriculture Rescue Training.
The National Farm Medicine Center, in partnership with Pittsville Fire Company, Life Link III, Heiman’s Holsteins, Heeg Farms Inc., and Marshfield Clinic Health System presented the training held just outside of Marshfield.
“I was very happy with the turnout,” says Pittsville Fire Chief Jerry Minor. “Getting the word out is working.”
Minor, the lead instructor, said planning is underway for the fall 2023 training, which will be the third in a five-year project.
Minor said the idea to train others to be trainers came up at last year’s event. Organizers developed a manual or “cookbook” of how to do a farm accident rescue training. The manual helps organize and conduct ag rescue training.
“You can look at it as an entire day or as individual areas to work on,” such as silo or grain bin rescue or machinery extrication, Minor explained. The training is a way “to get involved, take it back, and train up their county or region.”
The Marshfield area Agriculture Rescue Training is offered once a year, and Minor says the organizations are trying to create training experts in other areas in the state.
“This improves access to the training for all departments,” he said. “We’re looking forward to training in some other areas in mid-spring next year as a result of this train-the-trainer program.”
The Agricultural Rescue Training is divided over two days, with classroom sessions offered virtually and in-person, followed by five training stations the following day: grain bin rescue, silo rescue, tractor rollover, equipment extraction, and farm familiarization. This year’s classroom sessions included patient care by Keith Melvin and Wes Larson of Life Link III; Rural Firefighters Delivering Agricultural Safety and Health (RF-DASH) by National Farm Medicine Center Director Casper Bendixsen; and a presentation on large animal rescue by Howard Ketover, D.V.M., of Wisconsin Large Animal Rescue.
Minor said the large-animal session may be expanded to a hands-on training in the future. Ketover’s Dane County-based organization is called when a cattle trailer overturns, a cow falls into a manure pit, a large animal goes through the ice and similar mishaps.
“We’re trying to figure out what kind of a workshop we can have with them and their crew,” Minor says. “They have courses, multi-day. We have to develop something with him in a smaller group. We’ll encourage people to take the full course.”
MacQueen Emergency and Dinges Fire Company, two vendors that sell fire equipment rescue tools, attended this year. Minor says they brought in thousands of dollars of extrication equipment to try, allowing folks to try out new tools they may not have at their own station.
Additionally, the training was featured in Facebook live sessions throughout the day and in media coverage.
Beginning in 1981, the National Farm Medicine Center initiated farm rescue training for firefighters and emergency personnel and trained more than 1,400 individuals during the following two decades. The training was reintroduced in 2021. Its revival was made possible through donor support from the Auction of Champions, held annually at RiverEdge Golf Course, Marshfield.
Minor is pleased when firefighters and EMS personnel are able to put into practice what they learned. Just a few weeks before this year’s training, Travis Serocki, chief of the Owen-Withee-Curtiss Fire & EMS District, called to let Minor know they used techniques they learned in class on a call for a tractor rollover.
“That’s the kind of stuff we like to hear,” Minor says. “If we taught you something, and you put it into action, that’s great. That means we’re making a difference.”
Find more info on the Agriculture Rescue Training program: https://rfdash.org/ag-rescue-training/
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