Farm helper bucks odds, survives harrowing rescue

With corn surrounding him and up to his neck for more than two hours, Christopher Johnson of Owatonna kept saying prayers because he didn’t think he would survive.
When Johnson, 65, initially became totally buried in corn for a brief time and trapped for an additional two hours last week on his nephew’s farm just north of Geneva in Freeborn County, history was against his survival. According to a study by Purdue University, nearly three-fourths of reported grain entrapments resulted in death from 1964 to 2005. 
“I’m one of the very lucky ones,” Johnson said. “I sometimes wondered if I would just pass out and that would be it. It was very scary.”
Freeborn County Sheriff Kurt Freitag agreed that Johnson is one of the fortunate ones who survived something that often proves to be deadly. “We had a happy ending,” Freitag said. “This stuff is like quick sand. This guy is pretty lucky.”
As Johnson was sucked into an estimated 11 feet of corn in the 60,000 bushel bin, he instinctively grabbed for a rope that had been dangling close by and hung on for dear life. “I was hanging on for two hours with all I got,” he said. “It seemed like 24 hours.”
Johnson feels fortunate that his lifeline in the form of a rope was near by. “Without the safety rope, it would have sucked me right to the bottom,” he said. “If I had missed grabbing the rope by an inch, we wouldn’t even be here talking.”
Barely able to breath and nearly choked off with corn in his mouth, Johnson faced excruciating pain throughout the two-hour ordeal. He said he couldn’t open his mouth at all and refrained from breathing except for “little biddy sips of air” here and there. 
“I just knew I had to slow my breathing down to next to nothing so I wouldn’t keep heaving my chest,” Johnson said, adding breathing would have only made things worse by allowing more corn to pile onto him.
As for the pain, Johnson said it felt like “800 pounds of pressure” on his legs and about 400 pounds on his hips. 
Said Johnson: “The pressure was just unbelievable. It was so intense that I thought I was caught in the auger.” 
A Harrowing Rescue
Johnson was helping his nephew unload corn last Wednesday morning. When an auger became plugged up, Johnson went inside the bin to investigate. Clutching a 15-foot pole, Johnson tried to break a crust that had formed so the corn could pass through. 
Suddenly without warning, the crust broke and Johnson plunged into flowing grain. Within seconds, he became engulfed in about 11 feet of corn. A cleanup trip turned into a struggle for life.
He remained conscious the entire time and recalls hearing “blood curdling screams” from his brother who was at the top of the bin holding the rope. “I’m totally shocked he has a voice left,” Johnson later said.
After Johnson became engulfed in the corn, his nephew, Chad Johnson, and other family members tried to rescue him by lowering plywood into the bin. “Once we got the boards in there, I realized we wouldn’t get him out,” Chad Johnson said, adding they decided to call 911 for help.
Sheriff Freitag said the family members stopped and waited for help when the “grain started sliding down like a mini-avalanche.” 
Chad stayed in the bin with his uncle and made efforts to keep him calm. But it was not an easy battle. “I couldn’t move at all. If I did, it would have made in worse for him,” Chad said. He added he had to work at keeping himself calm without panicking. 
While Johnson clung to life inside the grain bin, at least 50 people raced to save him in a dramatic rescue attempt outside. Sheriff’s deputies from Freeborn County, EMS workers and firefighters from numerous agencies as well as family, friends and neighbors dropped everything to scramble in an effort to free Johnson. 
Johnson admits he had no idea from inside the bin how much commotion he created in the rescue effort. “I had no idea that there were more than five people here,” he said. 
Ellendale Fire Department showed up with a “rescue tube” that had just been donated to the department for grain rescues within the past year by local grain operator Sun Opta of Hope. 
Firefighters carefully placed the rescue tube around Johnson to prevent more corn from avalanching over his head. 
It was outside the bin where frantic efforts took place to remove the grain and rescue Johnson. Workers cut holes into the metal sides of the bin so grain would fall out. Rescuers took turns shoveling corn around the bin and utilizing skid steers and other equipment to make room for more grain outside of the bin. 
“We had an amazing amount of help,” said Johnson’s nephew, Chad.  
Escaped Injury
As the rescue went on, Johnson kept thinking to himself that there would be no way he could last this long. 
The other thought Johnson had while being buried in the corn concerned his mother. In 1968, Johnson’s mother experienced the death of a daughter from the Hong Kong flu. “That affected my parents unbelievably,” Johnson said. “I thought I’m not going to do this to my mom again.”
Rescuers finally got Johnson freed after two hours of frantic work. Johnson remembers being “so weak, but still conscious” when he was strapped to a backboard and taken to an awaiting medical helicopter. Mayo One flew Johnson to St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester where he was held for observation and released the next day without a bruise, scrape or broken bone.
After being allowed to go home, Johnson said his phone blew up with family and friends checking in on him. “I had to shut the phone off last night because I had to get some sleep,” Johnson said Friday afternoon. “It’s been so overwhelming,”
Faith & Scuba Diving
Johnson credits his harrowing survival to two things— his lifelong faith in God and his scuba diving hobby, which he just took up in recent years. 
“Faith has always been a major part of my life,” Johnson says. 
He admits he was prepared to die if it had been God’s will to take him. “But I was going to hang on to the bitter end,” he said.  “God has a plan for every one of us.”
Throughout the ordeal, Johnson recalls saying “prayers many, many times” over again. He said he asked God to “watch over my kids, grand kids and my mom.” He has five grandchildren all under 10 years old. 
After he was rescued, Johnson said, “I’m so thankful my grand kids don’t have to go through anything horrible like grandpa’s funeral.”
The other thing that contributed to Johnson’s survival is a hobby he took up six years ago. He learned how to scuba dive and now takes as many as three major trips to places like Mexico each year. 
Johnson said he believes his scuba diving experience had a major effect in keeping him alive in the grain bin. With scuba diving, “you really are controlling your breathing if you want the air to last in your tank,” he said, adding in the grain bin he had to focus on his breathing to make his air last.  
Overwhelming Help
Nobody has an official count, but there were at least 50 people helping in Johnson’s rescue last week. 
“This whole episode just blows me away,” Johnson said, “It’s hard to believe.”
Johnson knows he owes his life to the EMS workers, firefighters, deputies, neighbors, family members and others who pitched in to save his life. “Without the whole community, I wouldn’t be here,” he said. 
In addition to the various rescue vehicles that converged on the scene, neighbors and workers from area farm businesses brought tractors, skid steers, grain vacuums and a crane to help with the rescue. 
Johnson doesn’t know where to begin thanking everyone for their help in giving him a new lease on life. “It’s called how can you possibly say thank you to all those involved,” he said. 
He estimates that he has helped neighbors in trouble at least a dozen times over the years. “What goes around comes around, I guess. I’m just sorry they had to come around for me,” Johnson said. 
Helping others has always been in Johnson’s nature. “You can bet if something happens to a neighbor, I’ll be right there to help,” he said. “It’s the Christian thing to do.”
And don’t think for a moment that last week’s near-death experience will keep Johnson away from the farm. In fact, on the day he was released from the hospital, he was ready to come back and help, but was told by other family members he needed to wait. 
“I love to help here on the farm,” he said. “It’s a great day to be alive.”