Firefighters free man trapped in beet harvester in rural Forest Grove

Just after 3:30 pm on the afternoon of Thursday September 26th, 2013 Firefighters from Forest Grove Fire & Rescue and the Cornelius Fire Department were called to the middle of a beet crop field where a farmer had become trapped in a “beet digger” harvester. The crew of three farm workers were previously harvesting beets in the field in the 1700 block of SW Stringtown Road when they reported that the machine had become clogged with beets and soil. One of the workers jumped up to the top of the harvester, which basically digs beets from the soil and transfers them via conveyor belt to a truck that travels along side of it, and began to try and fix the clogged machine when he slipped and his foot and lower leg became tangled in the conveyor belt and ended up badly trapped. When firefighters arrived the farm workers were using large tools to try and keep the working parts off the trapped man’s legs, and initially firefighters attempted to use
large pry bars to no avail either. Firefighters were able to deploy two hydraulic rescue tools, like those typically used on car crash scenes, to apply enough leverage to spread the working parts of the harvester and after about 30 minutes of working on it, they were able to free the man from the machine.

firefighters begin to use hand tools to work to free the injured farm worker

 The injured 40’s aged man, who was conscious, alert, and talking to firefighters throughout the incident, he was transferred to a waiting Metro West Ambulance and taken to the trauma center at Legacy Emmanuel Hospital in Portland with non life threatening injuries, but what appeared to be moderate injuries to his lower leg.

after about 30 minutes of working on the machine, firefighters were able to free the injured worker

This was the second in a series of serious traumatic injury calls for Forest Grove’s Firefighters on Thursday afternoon, as crews were already responding to a crash on the Wilson River Highway west of the city that injured two people at the same time of this incident. One of these injuries was considered serious enough and was also transported to the trauma center in Portland.