‘An outstanding sigh of relief. That’s always your goal,’ Orangeburg first responders reflect on rescuing man trapped in silo

Dozens of first responders from several different agencies responded last Thursday to a man trapped in a grain silo in Orangeburg.

Orangeburg, S.C. (WOLO) —  Dozens of first responders from several different agencies responded last Thursday to a man trapped in a grain silo in Orangeburg. They helped rescue the man, an employee of Cactus Family Farms, who had been trapped for about nine hours.

“It was a little hot, not a lot of ventilation. Dusty, corn everywhere,” said Berry Gambrell, a Fire Engineer with Orangeburg Public Safety. “A very unusual situation, something we don’t face all the time.”

At about 9:30 Thursday morning, officers with Orangeburg Public Safety were paged out to Cactus Family Farms.

“Initial call was for someone trapped inside of a bin. When they gave the numerics out, I kind of figured it was where it was, that large silo that’s on 301,” said Sgt. Cliff Fairey with Orangeburg Public Safety. “Pretty bad situation, he was up to at least his mouth area in the grain.”

“He was talking for the most part. He definitely wanted to get out of there, which I can definitely understand,” said Gambrell.

“Cause we were constantly running into problems with the pressure of the corn coming down,” said Cpl. Aaron Maier with Orangeburg Public Safety.

Dozens of officials spent hours working to free the man from the grain, including Gambrell, who had been inside the silo when the man was eventually freed.

“It kinda seemed like there was no end insight for us, for a little while, we just kept working. We didn’t want to leave — we weren’t going to leave him in there. That wasn’t going to happen,” said Gambrell. “I enjoyed watching the video later of them removing him, cause we were still inside, we didn’t get to see what happened.”

It was the positive outcome that first responders hope for, as the man was conscious and safely rescued from the grain about nine hours later.

“An outstanding sigh of relief. That’s always your goal,” said Sgt. Fairey.

ABC Columbia reached out to Cactus Family Farms to get an update on the man’s condition, but representatives declined to comment.