A man was successfully rescued from a grain bin south of Newton on Tuesday. Newton Fire Chief Jarrod Wellik says Rick Nearmyer became trapped after he tried to unclog an auger. “We arrived to find a person trapped within the corn, up to about the mid-torso,” Wellik said. “He was breathing and everything was good with him.”
Nearmyer was trapped in the corn for about an hour before he was freed with the help of sectional grain bin rescue tubes. “They’re basically a set of snap together tubes that allow you to dig the corn out around the victim without having the other corn fall down on top of them,” Wellik said.
In addition to Newton firefighters, Jasper County Sheriff’s deputies, and firefighters from Kellogg, Monroe, and Reasnor responded to the scene. “Lifeflight also came in out of Des Moines. They were there for standby and luckily we didn’t need them,” Wellik said. Nearmyer was treated at the scene and was not transported to a hospital.
Curt Isakson is a 35 year veteran of the fire service. Curt is currently a Battalion Chief for Escambia County Fire Rescue. Previously worked 9 years with the Pensacola Fire Department where he was assigned as the Company Officer on Rescue 31. Curt’s fire service experiences started at a young age as a Junior firefighter with the Midway Fire Protection District and rose through the ranks to Captain. He has worked in volunteer, career, and combination departments.
Curt has held all ranks up to Battalion Chief and been assigned to operations, training, inspections, and was Chief of Special Operations for 7 years. Curt owns and operates County Fire Tactics that covers a very diverse range of fire service topics, as well as Firefighter Rescues, a site that documents rescues made by firefighters around the country.
He has annual contracts with numerous departments to provide standardized monthly training for these departments that respond daily together under an automatic aid agreement. Curt teaches nationally to include; FDIC, Firehouse Expo, Firehouse World, Orlando Fire Conference, Atlanta Fire Conference, Bowling Green State University, and owns/operates the annual HROC, COBC, WOTF, CFT ODP on Pensacola Beach. He is a Florida Certified Fire Officer, Instructor, Inspector, Arson, and FLUSAR.
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