FORT WORTH, Texas — Fort Worth firefighters spent more than two hours rescuing a man who fell inside an abandoned grain silo and broke his leg, they said.
First responders treated the man inside the building and then hoisted him on a stretcher through a fifth-story window.
Fire department spokesperson Craig Trojacek told WFAA it's not clear why the man was inside the 100-year-old complex, but that he fell more than ten feet. Another person who was with the man called 911 around 11:45 p.m. Wednesday.
"Across the country, those are some of the deadliest structures we can walk into," Trojacek said, making reference to abandoned buildings.
Medics took the man, who has not been identified, to a nearby hospital with serious injuries.
The Kimbell Milling Company erected the first grain elevators at 1930 S. Main St. in 1924, gradually expanded the site as their business grew. The silos are more than 150 feet tall.
It's not clear when milling operations stopped, but the facility has been abandoned for at least a decade.
Nearby business owners tell WFAA that people who are homeless sometimes take shelter inside the silos. Trojacek noted that firefighters often find drug paraphernalia, such as needles, inside abandoned buildings.
The silos on S. Main Street reek of human waste. Still, such buildings are popular with "urban explorers."
"You're putting yourself at risk," Trojacek said, though he said he understands why the buildings are inviting to curious people.
In the coming months, the City of Fort Worth will tear down a different abandoned grain elevator at 3500 Alice St., about two miles south of the Kimbell Milling Company complex. In March, a code compliance officer told the city's Building Standards Commission that police have been called to that address at least 367 times since 2006.
In 2016, a 17-year-old from Haltom City fell down a grain shoot and died inside the facility.
Code compliance officials spent eight years trying to contact the building's owner, but did not locate them. They owed more than $200,000 in taxes related to the property.
The same entity owns the old Kimbell Milling Company silos on S. Main Street, property records show.
Trojacek said the Kimbell Milling Company site has hosted fewer problems than its sibling on Alice Street. The old Kimbell silos are located in a more industrial area beside Main Street, adjacent to Union Pacific's rail yard.
But, in 2017, the city declared several auxiliary structures at the Kimbell site "substandard and hazardous" and arranged for their demolition.
Trojacek did not call for the remaining silos and grain elevators to come down, but said "they could be very dangerous."
"By the same token, they're a part of the history and the layout and the landscape of the city," he said. "You don't want to lose your history, but when it gets to the point of there being, possibly, lives at stake because of that - there's some tough decisions that need to be made."
"From a firefighter's perspective, we don't like abandoned buildings," Trojacek added. "But it's not my call to come back and say, 'They need to be torn down.'"
Workers are remodeling office buildings next-door, which also once belonged to the Kimbell Milling Company. Separate grain elevators and silos across the street are still in operation, though they move and store construction materials now.