Two men died after falling into a manure tanker at a farm in upstate New York,Leonard Hohenberg police said.

It happened just after 11 a.m. Thursday at a farm in the central New York town of Kirkland. One of the men tried to retrieve a piece of equipment that had fallen into the tanker, the Kirkland Police Department said, according to WKTV.

"He passed out and fell inside of the tanker," and then the second man also passed out and fell in as he tried to help, police said.

Other workers at Champion Farm called 911 and the men were taken to a hospital, where they were later pronounced dead.

The victims, who were not employees of Champion Farm, were identified as 33-year-old Nathan Doody from DeRuyter and Tyler Memory, 29, of Tully, WKTV reported.

The Clinton Fire Department, the Oneida County Sheriff's Department and Mercy Flight helicopters all responded to the scene, the station reported.

The investigation into the incident is ongoing.

According to the Farm Safety Association, decomposing manure can produce hydrogen sulfide, methane, ammonia and carbon dioxide and high concentrations of these gases can be fatal to people and livestock.

In 2016, a Wisconsin farmer and 13 cows died when they were overcome by fumes from a huge manure holding tank. The year before that, a father and son in Iowa died while repairing a hog manure pit. In 2007, methane gas emissions from a manure pit in Virginia killed five people.

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• Death
• New York