Des Moines, IA - For the fourth consecutive year, Nationwide is collaborating with industry leaders and agricultural professionals to host the Nominate Your Fire Department Contest as part of this year’s Grain Bin Safety Week.

The safety contest runs from Jan. 1 through May 31. It will award grain rescue tubes and specialized hands-on training to help first responders save lives when farmers and other workers become dangerously entrapped in grain bins and other grain storage structures.

“Deploying a grain rescue tube is the only way to safely remove someone trapped in grain,” said Brad Liggett, president of Nationwide Agribusiness. “Until we can convince all farmers and other grain handlers to develop a zero-entry mentality, we will continue to make tubes available.”

Since its inception in 2014, the contest has attracted over 1,000 nominations and awarded tubes and training to 32 fire departments across 15 states. One of those winners — the Westphalia Fire Department in Kansas — used their new skills in 2015 to rescue a man who became entrapped in a grain bin.

Grain Bin Safety Week 2017 is made possible by Nationwide, the No. 1 farm insurer¹, CHS, West Side Salvage, Specialty Risk Insurance, ABIS, KC Supply Co., The Scoular Company, Authur J Gallagher & Co., NOHR Wortmann Engineering, National Farm Medicine Center and the National Education Center for Agricultural Safety.

For more information about the program, purpose or nomination process, visit www.grainbinsafetyweek.com.