Highlights from 2022 findings

2022 U.S. Agricultural Confined Space-Related Injuries and Fatalities report

• No fewer than 83 cases, 24 fatal and 59 non-fatal, involving agricultural confined spaces were documented in 2022, representing a 40.7 percent increase as compared to the 59 cases in 2021.

• There were no fewer than 42 grain-related entrapments in 2022 representing a 44.8 percent increase as compared to 2021. This was the largest number of grain entrapments in more than a decade. The balance of 41 cases involved livestock-waste-handling facilities, entanglements inside confined spaces, falls from confined-space structures, and grain-dust explosions or fires.

• Eight incidents involved more than one victim.

• Eleven cases involved livestock-waste storage pits or lagoons, eight of which were fatal.

• Three grain-dust explosions resulting in 18 non-fatal injuries were documented. Fifteen of these injuries were attributed to a single incident in Iowa.

• One female case was documented in 2022, which occurred inside a cotton module builder.

• There were 29 percent – 24 – of 2022 cases that were fatal compared to 59 percent historically.

• Iowa reported the most cases, 24, including those relating to fires and explosions; 15 of these cases resulted from a single explosion incident. Indiana, Minnesota and Ohio each had 6.

• Iowa reported the most grain-entrapment cases in 2022 – nine. Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois, in that order, have historically recorded the most grain-entrapment cases.