SOUTH MAHONING TOWNSHIP, Pa. — State police said an 18-year-old Amish man was killed after becoming trapped in an Indiana County farm silo Thursday afternoon.
Officials said his 15-year-old brother had to be rescued after trying to help him escape.
Trooper John Matchik said the incident happened on a neighbor's farm where the teens worked in South Mahoning Township.
Coroner Mike Baker said 18 year-old Wollie Schlabach Jr. of Rummel Road, near Smicksburg, died shortly after entering a silo on the Kimmell farm at 362 Sinktown Road.
Baker said the 65-foot silo had been filled just yesterday, and the victim and his 14-year-old brother went in at the top to level-off the contents when the older brother began feeling sick and calling for help.
Matchik said the younger brother called 911, climbed up an outside ladder and entered the silo to help his brother, then had to be rescued after he also fell ill to the fumes.
While the younger brother was able to escape, Schlabach was quickly overcome by the lack of oxygen at the top of the silo and died before he could be rescued. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
"It's a situation that unfortunately had gone too far before we were even able to get on scene," Citizens' Ambulance Service employee Randy Thomas said. "Whenever they fill the silos up and blow the silage into it, sometimes it will mound up and create piles inside the silo. In order to have an even distribution of the product, they go in and move it around and level it out."
The coroner has determined the cause of death to be asphyxia due to deprivation of oxygen in a confined space and has ruled the death an accident.
Copyright The Associated Press
WPXI
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/XCUXZC2XYZHCRGNNGKFEX6U3LQ.png)
