UPDATED at 11:05 a.m. with details from rescue team.
SAUGET • Rescuers shoveled corn out of the way to free a man who was trapped inside a grain bin for nearly two hours on Thursday morning.
The man, 43, of Columbia, Ill., was conscious and talking throughout the rescue as he stood waist-deep in grain.
He became trapped shortly before 9 a.m. in a 75-foot-high silo at the , 231 Monsanto Avenue in Sauget.
Shortly before 11 a.m., he was freed. He was taken by medical helicopter to Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ University Hospital. The helicopter crew told dispatchers that the man had some pain in his right leg but was able to move his legs and arms. Authorities did not release the man's name.
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The man had gone into the bin for routine maintenance, said Randy Lay with the St. Clair County emergency services rescue team.
The corn shifted "like an avalanche" around the man, said Capt. Dan Sutter of the Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ Fire Department. Another worker who was at the opening of the silo saw that happen and called for help.
The silo can hold up to 300,000 bushels of grain, but on Thursday morning it held about 80,000.
Rescuers likened the grain to quicksand in the way it closed in around the man.
"You'd think you could just pick someone up (but) there's so much pressure around the body," said O'Fallon Fire Chief Brent Saunders. "He's surrounded by that."
Saunders said crews lowered a tube around the man to protect him from the crush of the grain. They then shoveled the corn away from his body to give him room to stand up.
A man who answered the phone at Center Ethanol Plant declined comment.
EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this story contained an incorrect measurement of the grain. This version has been corrected.
