Man survives five hours trapped in grain bin, a more dangerous device than ever, relatively speaking

When someone falls into a grain bin, the chance of survival is slim. From 1964 to 2008, 74 percent of reported grain entrapments resulted in fatalities, according to a report from Purdue University. But last week, 23-year-old Arick Baker beat the odds, surviving five hours in a bin at New Providence, Iowa. Katherine Klingseis detailed Baker's incredible story in The Des Moines Register. (Register photo by David Purdy: Baker standing on corn cleared from the bin to free him)

Baker, who was trying to remove some rotten corn when he fell, told Klingseis, “My whole life I’ve been told that once you go down in a grain bin, you die. In less than 10 seconds, there was 18 inches to 2 feet of corn above me. I had my left arm above my head, and I think you could only see an inch of my fingers. I just thought about my next breath. It consumed all of my mind activity.”

Baker was one of the lucky ones, and doctors credit that to being just the right age to survive such an ordeal, Klingseis reports. His heart rate was so fast -- 173 times per minute, or 90 percent of his maximum -- that doctors told him "if I were 10 years older, my heart would have exploded from how fast it was beating,” and because of his size, doctors said “If I were 10 years younger, I would have been squeezed to death from the pressure.”

Despite nearly dying, Baker has no plans to stop working on grain bins, or even going back into one if necessary, Klingseis reports. “I’m going to be a farmer the rest of my life. I need to get used to going into grain bins. I will take a little extra safety precautions, but it still has to be done.” (Read more) Grain-bin injuries and fatalities have remained steady as other farm-related casualties have declined, and prosecutions for violations of safety rules are rare.