Farm workers are in shock after a man fell into a lagoon of manure and died last week, said local authorities.
Gordon Van Baren, 30, was working on maintenance at Windy Ridge Dairy, a farm in Fair Oaks, Indiana, on Thursday.
"They had a piece of equipment roll into the lagoon," Jasper County Sheriff Pat Williamson told Newsweek. "This individual was working on a piece of equipment out there and somehow he fell in."
Farming is the most dangerous work environment in the United States, with higher on-the-job fatalities than police officers, firefighters or other emergency responders, according to the National Education Center for Agricultural Safety. In 2019, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 573 work-related deaths, or 23 per 100,000 agricultural workers—seven times above the national average.
Although no one was there to witness the tragic accident, county coroner Andy Boersma determined that Van Baren became trapped and severed his leg. He died of blood loss, the coroner told Newsweek.
When other workers noticed that Van Baren was no longer on the equipment, they called emergency services. Officers pulled out the equipment, but the employee was gone. They sailed through the manure pond in a boat, dragging a treble hook, until they finally hooked and recovered the body. It took over four hours to locate Van Baren.
Williamson, who was on the scene, said the other workers were shaken.
"The farm employees were very disturbed and upset over the circumstances, as you can well imagine, with a coworker having fallen into that type of environment. It was a very traumatic experience for the individuals that were out there," he said.
Neither Williamson nor Boersma has reported deaths related to manure lagoons in the past, but the pits can be a "death trap," according to the National Agricultural Safety Database (NASD). Asphyxiation is a leading cause of severe injury and death associated with manure pits, which can produce toxic levels of hydrogen sulfide, methane, ammonia and carbon dioxide.
NASD has reported several cases of people succumbing to toxic gases from the pits, including individuals who were attempting to rescue a coworker or family member. In 2021, three brothers died after becoming stuck in a manure pit at an Ohio farm. Of the sixteen deaths in confined areas on Ohio farms between 2010 and 2019, six were related to manure lagoons, according to the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at Ohio State University.
Newsweek reached out to Windy Ridge Dairy for comment.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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