Giving Emergency Workers The Right Directions To the Field

Farm safety experts at Carle want farmers to have detailed instructions to give first responders in the event of an emergency in the field. 

Amy Rademaker with the Carle Center for Rural Health and Farm Safety wants farm workers to be able to give emergency responders accurate directions, when a medical crisis occurs in a remote field. The Carle website has a form farmers can print off and fill out that gives the exact location of each field.

In an emergency, that form can tell first responders the location of each field the farmer works--down to the nearest intersection, GPS coordinates and turn-by-turn directions.

"In a panicked moment, when you would normally be able to give directions any other time, in a panicked situation, we need to make sure we can get emergency crews there as quickly as possible," Rademaker said. 

"Put them (the forms) in the combine, the augur truck, the grain trucks, maybe the truck that goes to every single field and one at the base location—the place where everything starts at the beginning of the day and ends at the end of the day."

Farmers can print off the farm safety forms at carle.org/farmsafety.