Fire department rescues man from grain bin in Covington

COVINGTON, Tenn. — In a rescue unlike any the Covington Fire Department has ever faced, a man is safe after he was trapped inside a grain bin Thursday.

It’s not clear how the man got inside the bin, but after two hours and three cuts through the silo, he was freed.

Chief Richard Griggs says when they got the call at just before 4 Thursday afternoon, the Covington Fire Department knew they had to act fast.

A single soybean is small, but imagine being surrounded by thousands of them, with no way out.

“Once you get there, it’s hard to get out because there’s no footing and it continues to move and you can’t get out, you can’t pull out of it,” Griggs said. “He was very fortunate that one of his farm hands came to locate him and couldn’t locate him, and heard him screaming for help.”

Luckily, it’s something the Covington Fire Department has prepared for, just in case. The department has had a rescue tube since 2021, but it wasn’t until Thursday that they actually had to use it.

“What we do is, once you have the individual inside, we take this auger and put in and use the drill to turn the auger to remove the material from the inside of the tube so they can actually use the tube to pull themselves out,” Griggs said.

And they’re so glad they had it, because this story could have had a much different ending if they didn’t.

“He may be upset with us for having to cut his grain bin, but he’s able to talk about it.,” Griggs said.

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The man went to the hospital to be checked out, but we’re told he was released Friday morning.

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