It’s cold in New York right now, though that may be hard to imagine if you’re on the West Coast. There’s snow, and when there’s snow, you need to melt the ice on the roads so people can get to and from work. A major help with that is spreading salt, which helps melts the ice and protects from forming black ice. Unfortunately, one man who was refilling one of these massive machines became stuck and unable to free himself.
A worker at the Briggs and Stratton facility heard someone yelling for help. That was when they discovered a man in his 30s had been pulled into the huge machine. Halfway in and halfway out, emergency services tried to free him for over an hour.
“He got up in there and it pulled him in,” Police Chief Rob Drake of Sherrill Police Department said of the occurance.
In the beginning, responders thought the man would have to be airlifted to the hospital, fearing internal injuries. Fortunately for the man, only an injured ankle seemed to be a problem. They had to cut him out of the machine, which probably also had something to do with him having minor injuries.
He is expected to fully recover.
The video below is of a truck salting a parking lot. You can also see the way that most people refill the salt, with an earth-moving tractor.
