Circle CC Ranch, Inc.: OSHA inspections and violations

Incident on Mar 4, 2015 (fatal): Employee is killed from engulfment by soybeans

At 2:00 p.m. on March 4, 2015 an employee was working inside of a soybean storage bin and using an air hose to loosen soybeans so that they could be loaded into semi-trailer trucks. The employee was working in the soybean storage bin with the conveying system on and soybeans were being moved out of the bin and loaded into semi-trailer trucks. The soybeans were starting to get plugged up in the bin and the PVC pipe attached to an air hose was positioned in the grain at the center of the bin. Employees pushed the PVC pipe/air hose into the grain and then pulled it out to reposition it once the soybeans started to fall. This was repeated while the soybeans were being loaded into semi-trailer trucks. Shortly after repositioning the hose and noticing the PVC pipe was no longer attached to the hose, two employees who were in the bin at the time began sinking into the soybeans. One employee became engulfed in the soybeans and died due to asphyxiation. The employees had not been trained on the hazards of grain bin entry, and both employees were not provided with adequate equipment to perform the work safely.