Safety measures reduce blasts at grain elevators

By Michael J. Crumb

Associated Press / November 1, 2011

WICHITA, Kan.—No one needs to tell Steven Stallbaumer about the dangers of working in grain elevators.

He was unloading fertilizer outside a Kansas elevator in 1998 when it exploded, killing seven workers. The blast knocked Stallbaumer underneath a railroad car, and he figures that saved his life. A big motor fell from the top of the elevator and landed beside the dump truck where he had been working. Read on