A 30-year-old man’s legs were both amputated in a Minnesota hospital after a tragic accident on a farm Sunday afternoon.
Travis Muller legs got stuck and mangled in a grain bin auger while he was trying to clean out the bin, his wife Jasmine Muller wrote in a GoFundMe post.
“Things turned for the worst extremely quickly. Both of Trav’s legs got caught in the auger up to his thighs,” she recalled. “As life changing as this will be and heartbreaking to lose his legs, the doctor said just a few more seconds and he would no longer be with us.”
The paramedics reportedly turned up at the scene shortly after receiving an emergency call and removed him from the auger. They then transported him to the hospital via airlift, EMS 1 reported.
Minn. man suffers leg amputations after being trapped in grain bin auger https://t.co/SY1Kf3ycxN #ems1 #ems
— EMS1 (@EMS1) September 26, 2023
The family set up a GoFundMe account to raise $1,000 for Travis’ hospital expenses. As of Sept. 28, the family raised over $74,000 through that account.
Agricultural augers are among the most dangerous pieces of farm equipment, Safe AG Systems reported. In Australia, it was responsible for a death and 60 serious injuries, most of which were amputations. Within Minnesota alone, between the years 1992 to 1994, augers were associated with two deaths, according to a 1995 report by the CDC.
An April 2022 paper by Purdue University found at least 23 fatal encounters with augers in 2021 in the United States.
“Grain storage and handling facilities, and/or grain transport vehicles were involved in the overwhelming majority of cases and 1,331 cases (59%) were fatal [between 1962 to 2021],” the study noted.