Let's stop treating our youth like dummies

At a recent training event to evaluate various types of rescue devices and strategies to extricate victims from partial entrapment in free-flowing grain, a group of volunteer high school students were invited to participate as test subjects. For each test, two youth were equipped with full-body harnesses and lifelines, asked to stand on the grain surface in a semi-trailer load of dry corn, and then allowed to be drawn into the grain as the bottom discharge gate under each youth was opened. Both “victims” were drawn into the grain at either end of the trailer at the same time, each located over the deepest section of the trailer directly above a hopper. Photos were taken of the entrapped youth showing no more than their heads and shoulders above the grain surface.