GUELPH, Ont. — A farmer joked out loud that surface crusts on his manure pits were so thick he could drive across with his skid steer loader.
A few people in the group laughed along politely, but many others on the tour bus slowly shook their heads in silence.
The brief incident, which occurred during the annual Manure Expo in Guelph, demonstrated that attitudes toward manure gases may be more deadly than the gases themselves.
It’s not known if the farmer really does drive his skid steer loader over the crust. In all likelihood he doesn’t, because if he had tried it, he wouldn’t have been around to brag about it.
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However, even if he just walks on the surface crust, as many farmers do, he exposes himself to the two big manure pit killers: drowning in slurry and asphyxiation from toxic gases.
The three main gases are hydrogen sulfide, methane and carbon dioxide.
The basic safety recommendations for working around manure pits have been around for decades and reflect common sense:
- Never walk on the crusted surface
- Have a self-contained air supply
- Make sure the pit has good ventilation
- Never enter a pit unless a stand-by helper is available who is fully equipped to perform a rescue without entering the pit themselves
- Always wear a rescue harness attached to a mechanical lift so the helper can perform the rescue without further risk
The reason for the stand-by helper with a mechanical lift has been obvious to rescue workers for a long time. When the safety helper sees that the pit worker is in trouble, the automatic reaction is to get in the pit to help.
One fatality quickly becomes two fatalities and then two becomes three.
According to the July-August issue of Manure Manager magazine, there have been cases where five family members died trying to save the family member who went down into the pit just before them.
The American National Standards Institute introduced ANSI S607 this summer in an attempt to reduce the number of manure pit deaths.
