It took 5 hours to dig worker’s body out of bin after soybeans collapsed on him, feds say

A 19-year-old worker from South Africa suffocated to death after he climbed into a storage bin and was buried by soybeans, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

The Mississippi farm where the man was working has been cited with “serious violations” of safety protocols, according to an April 19 news release from the U.S. Department of Labor.

The worker, two co-workers and a supervisor climbed into a storage bin at Bare Bones Farms in Greenwood in October to unclog it, according to the release. Once they were inside, the soybeans the bin was holding shifted and “engulfed” them, according to the department.

Emergency crews responded and cut a hole in the bin to try to free the workers, the release says. It took them five hours to recover the worker who had died.

A message left at the farm by McClatchy News was not returned on April 19.

Investigators with the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration found that the farm “willfully violated” the law by “failing to ensure that the employees wore full body harnesses connected to a lifeline while inside the soybean bin, which exposed them to deadly engulfment hazards,” the release says.

The company also, “failed to train employees on general safety precautions, including preventative measures for bin-entry procedures, and did not make sure workers de-energized the equipment and machinery before entering the soybean storage bin,” the release says.

The operator of the farm did not have a respiratory protection program written out for employees who are required to wear respirators and did not provide medical evaluations, fit tests or trainings for workers who wear respirators as they handle soybeans, the department said.

OSHA proposed $90,182 in fines against the farm, the release says.

The company can request an “informal conference” with the administration’s area director or contest the findings before an independent review commission within 15 business days of receiving the citations, according to the release.

Three of the workers involved in the incident were from South Africa and were in Mississippi under the “H-2A temporary agricultural workers visa program,” according to the department.

“Well-known safety standards that protect people from the grave dangers of working in grain bins have been in place for decades, and yet Bare Bones Farms jeopardized the lives of its employees by ignoring federal regulations,” Courtney Bohannon, OSHA’s area director, said in a statement. “As a result, the life of a young man who traveled more than 8,500 miles to work in the U.S. ended tragically.”

In 2021, 38% of “reported grain engulfments” were fatal because employers did not follow safety regulations, according to the department.

Greenwood is about 100 miles north of Jackson.

This story was originally published April 19, 2023 at 7:06 PM with the headline "It took 5 hours to dig worker’s body out of bin after soybeans collapsed on him, feds say."