Man who fell at grain plant still critical

Emergency crews worked Wednesday to rescue a man who fell more than 15 feet while working at a grain elevator facility in north Wichita.

Brad Boyd, a battalion chief with the Wichita Fire Department, said an employee at the facility near 18th and Topeka was working six or seven floors off the ground before he fell 15 or 20 feet.

At about 11:30 a.m., firefighters and emergency responders were seen loading a man on a gurney into an ambulance. The man’s face and head appeared to be bloodied.

The man was taken to Via Christi Hospital St. Francis, where he was in critical condition Wednesday night, a hospital supervisor said.

“He had some pretty severe injuries,” Boyd said. “He was conscious and talking to rescuers, but he wasn’t able to get out on his own power. He’ll be evaluated at the hospital.”

The man was not working in the area of the facility where grain is stored, Boyd said.

Once at the scene, fire personnel extended one of the department’s long ladders, which extended close to 100 feet in the air on the outside of the elevator. It was determined, however, that rescuers would need to approach the man from the inside of the building while using an elevator shaft, Boyd said.

“If we couldn’t get to the elevator on the inside, the next plan was to bring him off the very top,” Boyd said. “When you get in a facility like this, the mechanical operations and the piping make it extremely difficult to maneuver and rescue someone.”

The man was a contractor working at the site, said Abigail Shilling, a spokeswoman for Land O’Lakes, which owns the Purina plant where the incident occurred.

“Our thoughts are with him and his family and we are grateful to the first responders on the scene this morning,” Shilling said in a prepared statement.

This story was originally published July 26, 2017 at 10:53 AM with the headline "Man who fell at grain plant still critical."