TEKAMAH, Neb. (AP) — About 75 people have helped harvest the corn planted by a man who died in October after driving into a cloud of anhydrous ammonia that leaked from a pipeline near his home north in northeast Nebraska.
Authorities say the anhydrous ammonia, a farm fertilizer with suffocating fumes, leaked from the pipeline near Tekamah on Oct. 17.
Hazmat workers and Tekamah firefighters responded to reports of a motorist who needed help and moved 59-year-old Phillip Hennig to a safe area, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Friends and neighbors came out Wednesday to harvest Hennig’s 650 acres of corn. Neighbors have already harvested Hennig’s bean crop.
Magellan Midstream Partners, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, has been repairing the 8-inch-diameter pipeline that carries the fertilizer.