RF-Dash, National Farm Medicine Center partner to host agriculture emergency incident training

CHILI, Wis. (WSAW) - When it comes to the agriculture industry, you are 8-10 times more likely to die on the job than the average U.S. worker.

But for RF-Dash and the National Farm Medicine Center, their mission is to prevent those fatalities from ever occurring in the first place.

Although the frequency of agricultural incidents are low, the severity is often significantly high when they occur.

But with proper training, rescue efforts can be life-saving.

“Our goal is to make them safer rescuers and familiarize them with some of the more common emergencies on farms,” says Jerry Minor, Chief, Pittsville Fire.

Over 70 participants took part of the training on Saturday, ensuring that they are duly prepared to handle agricultural incidents. Such as silo rescuing, grain bin rescuing, and, the most common of all, tractor rollovers.

For the National Farm Medicine Center, their collaborative training efforts have been rewarding.

“Working with the farm community is always rewarding,” says Casper Bendixsen, Director National Farm Medicine Center. “But then when you get to work with firefighters, trauma nurses, and all these folks, it’s just two really wonderful groups of people you love to get together.”

While 31 new agencies from across Wisconsin joined the training this year, Bendixsen says he hopes those numbers to continue to soar.

“We don’t wanna be the only game in town,” says Bendixen. “We want this to spread like wildfire and really get the knowledge out there because it’s something you have to train for. You’re not gonna get it as often as car wrecks and stuff like that where you get those frequently and you can handle those. You have to train for them.”

Although the idea of the training is to rescue, the ultimate goal is to prevent.

“It’s building on a conversation beyond just rescue, it’s building towards prevention. And lowering that fatality rate, lowering that injury rate in both farming and firefighting.”

For more information on RF-Dash, click here.

For more information on the National Farm Medicine Center, click here.

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