Buried Alive in a Grain Silo

Four years ago, Erika Hayasaki learned about the death of two young men in a corn grain bin accident in the Midwest. Over the next two years, while pregnant and later with her then-six-month-year-old daughter and husband in tow, she left her life in Los Angeles to visit Mount Carroll, Illinois, population 1,700, to capture the story. The following is an excerpt from Hayasaki’s story, Drowned By Corn, which describes the lives of the young workers before the accident.