Wings of a Bird

Farmer, 4 rescuers overcome by methane - A.P.
Methane gas emanating from a dairy farm manure pit killed five people — a Mennonite farmer who climbed into the pit to unclog a pipe, and then, in frantic rescue attempts that failed, his wife, two daughters and a farmhand, officials said Tuesday.
"They all climbed into the pit to help," Rockingham County Sheriff Donald Farley said.
Farmers typically take pains to ventilate manure pits where methane often gathers. A relative of the farmer who died questioned whether cattle feed could have trickled into the pit and accelerated the formation of the gas. "You cannot smell it, you cannot see it, but it's an instant kill," said Dan Brubaker, a family friend who oversaw the construction of the pit decades earlier. ...