Why Should Delaware Care?
In the wake of a grain bin accident that killed one man in Bridgeville, Delaware farmers are calling to re-examine their safety training. At the same time, the community has rallied around the Evans Farm, where the accident occurred, providing support and business in the wake of the loss.
As the Bridgeville community reels following a fatal grain bin accident on a well-known area farm earlier this month, local farmers are calling for more safety training to prevent future deaths.
Two employees became trapped in a grain tank while trying to fix a clogged piece of machinery on Evans Farm — a 2,000-acre grain and produce farm just off Seashore Highway in Bridgeville — on April 10.
A crew of more than 75 first responders spent hours attempting to rescue the two men. One of the employees, a 20-year-old Bridgeville resident, was successfully removed from the tank and taken to a nearby hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
The second person, a 66-year-old man, was located in the tank and pronounced dead, according to a state police report. The man’s name has still not been released, a spokesperson for the state police said Monday.
The state police wrote in the report that its Criminal Investigations Unit is conducting an investigation into the circumstances of the accident. The state police spokesperson told Spotlight Delaware that the Delaware office of Occupational Safety and Health – also known as OSHA – also responded to the scene.
The Delaware OSHA office did not respond to Spotlight Delaware’s request for comment.
Grain bins — large metal silos used to store dried corn and soybeans after they are harvested — can be especially dangerous to enter when full. Their contents can have similar effects to quicksand, making it easy to get stuck inside, and quickly be crushed by the grain’s weight.
Before the death on Evans Farm earlier this month, Delaware had not seen one in nearly two decades.
It has left the state’s agricultural community shaken up and forced to consider how to adjust the industry culture to stop farmers from taking safety risks.
“You’ve got to change the whole mentality of farmers in general,” said Steve Breeding, a Seaford-area sheep farmer and president of the Sussex County Farm Bureau. “As farmers, we want to get it done. We don’t think about the consequences.”
Kevin and Katey Evans, third-generation farmers and owners of the Evans Farm, did not respond to Spotlight Delaware’s request for comment. Aside from two posts on social media, the couple largely has not commented publicly about the accident.
The Evanses made a Facebook post on April 12 expressing their sadness about the situation. The man who died was “like family,” they wrote.
The post has since garnered 350,000 views and an outpouring of hundreds of comments in support of the farm. Along with operating the grain and produce farm, the Evanses also run a farm market store and well-known ice cream store, the Frozen Farmer.
Farmers react
In the wake of the accident, some Delaware farmers highlighted the dangers of farm employees entering grain tanks. Others were struck by the pattern of farmers charging ahead with dangerous tasks without taking safety precautions, which they said has been baked into the industry’s culture.
Jim Minner, a Felton-area corn and soybean grower, said farmers are aware of safety risks, but they tend to assume accidents will happen to someone else — not them.
“When [an accident] happens, everybody kind of gets focused on that, and then everything goes good for a year,” said Minner, who is also the Kent County Farm Bureau president. “But then people slide back into their old habits.”
According to numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, farming is one of the country’s more dangerous occupations. The department’s most recent data reported 448 fatal injuries in 2023 from the farming category, and 45% of those were from crop production.
While technological improvements have reduced some of the risks, trying to balance tight margins with needing to replace equipment and even repairing equipment oneself all can make risks higher, said Breeding, the Sussex Farm Bureau president.
Paul Cartanza, a Dover-area farmer, said he worked with grain elevators for 35 years before his father sold theirs to the major chicken producer Mountaire.
In those 35 years, though, Cartanza said he never went into the grain bin. If he had an issue, he would try to use other strategies, like putting golf balls into the bin’s auger — a spinning arm that moves large amounts of grain, to try to resolve the situation.
Cartanza added that he credits Nationwide Insurance, which has been supplying grain rescue tubes to a number of fire departments and individual farmers in Delaware and Maryland, with having improved safety outcomes for grain bin incidents.
Training and rescue tools
The Delaware Soybean Board posted on Facebook following the Evans Farm incident with a list of where grain bin rescue tubes are located in Delaware and Maryland.
There are 21 tubes around the state, and all fire departments on the Delmarva Peninsula are trained in how to do grain tank rescues, University of Delaware agricultural researcher Nate Bruce said.
Lindsay Thompson, executive director of the Maryland Grain Producers Association, said she views grain bin accidents as a “preventable problem.”
Thompson added that Nationwide Insurance’s partnership with local fire departments has allowed them to better respond to grain bin emergencies and prevent fatalities.
However, she said there are still a couple of non-fatal grain bin accidents on the Delmarva Peninsula each year, which she attributes to the “inherently dangerous” nature of farming.
“I do think that training is positive,” Thompson told Spotlight Delaware. “I don’t think that anyone goes into the grain bin thinking that they’re going to get stuck.”
The last time a grain bin rescue tube was used in Delaware was in 2023 when a worker became trapped in a silo of sand at Atlantic Concrete Company in Millsboro, Delaware Farm Bureau Executive Director Joseph Poppiti told Spotlight Delaware. The worker was successfully rescued.
According to OSHA records, the most recent fatal grain bin accident in Delaware occurred nearly two decades ago. An employee of the Delmar-area chicken company Allen’s Hatchery opened the side cover on a grain silo, and several thousand tons of soybeans broke free, crushing the employee.
Two other Delaware farmers passed away in 2014 and 2016 respectively due to accidents related to other farm equipment — a loose wire on a feed motor and a trailer accident.
Despite the resources around the state and first responders trained in how to respond to grain bin emergencies, Breeding said he believes the farm bureau needs to do a better job informing the farming community about grain bin protocol, and putting safety at the forefront in general.
Breeding said the bureau puts on a farm safety event once a year, but the recent incident has made him consider adding additional training closer to harvesting season, when farmers are more likely to be frequently using their grain bins.
“It should be fresh in everybody’s minds,” he said.
Community comes together
In a second post on social media last week, Kevin and Katey Evans said the best way to support the farm and its employees is to show up to the store and “leave with a smile, or come in for just a hug.”
The family’s two posts now have nearly 600 comments combined, with users writing prayers and positive comments.
Millsboro resident Kelly Hinkhaus, who described herself as a regular Evans Farm customer, said she went out to the ice cream stand a couple days after the accident. It was “hopping,” she said.
“There’s no stopping when there’s farming,” Hinkhaus, who also has a background in farming, told Spotlight Delaware. “It’s an everyday work.”
Breeding and Poppiti, the state farm bureau director, said they have not made any public statements or planned any memorial events for the Evans Farm employee who died, in an effort to respect his family’s privacy.
Breeding added the Sussex County Farm Bureau would like to do a remembrance of some sort when the family is ready.
Maggie Reynolds is a Report for America corps member and Spotlight Delaware reporter who covers rural communities in Delaware. Your donation to match our Report for America grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://spotlightdelaware.org/support/.
