Tragic.
One of the worst incidents & the one that jumped immediately to mind after seeing this story was this 2007 incident .... family members kept trying to save others & died.
Gas From Manure Pit Kills 5 On Dairy Farm [2007]
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gas-from-manure-pit-kills-5-on-dairy-farm/
Deadly methane gas emanating from a dairy farm’s manure pit killed five people, including four members of a Mennonite family, authorities said.
Emergency workers speculate that after the first victim was overcome Monday, the others climbed into the pit in a frantic rescue attempt. “It was a domino effect with one person going in, the second person going after them,” Rockingham County Sheriff Don Farley said.
“When these fumes hit you, it takes a matter of seconds, and it’s my guesstimate that these people were dead before they actually hit the floor,” Farley told CBS News.
Farley identified the victims as Scott Showalter, 34; his wife, Phyillis, 33; their daughters, Shayla, 11, and Christina, 9; and Amous Stoltzfus, 24, who worked at the Showalters’ dairy farm in the Briery Branch community.
The accident began when Scott Showalter tried to transfer manure from one small pit to a larger one, measuring 20 feet by 20 feet and 8 feet deep.
The pipe that was transferring the manure became clogged, and Showalter climbed in the pit to fix the blockage, Farley said.
The death of the daughters and mom seem especially tragic since none of them likely had the strength necessary to rescue the unconscious males from that pit.
I remember a similar incident decades ago in which a man went into an enclosed and passed out. Fire and rescue were called. The first rescue man went in without an air supply and died.
Another went in WITH an air supply. Seeing what had happened he lifted his mask to yell instructions to those outside the hole, and he also died.