Report details efforts to rescue mother fatally pinned by hay bale

The Norman County Sheriff's Office has released more details of a farm accident last month that fatally injured a 28-year-old mother. Katherine Brommenschenkel Vilmo, of Ada, was feeding cattle Friday, Nov. 16, on her family's farm in Hendrum along Minnesota Highway 200. It was about 9 a.m. when a large hay bale pinned Vilmo against a cattle feeder, according to a sheriff's office report. Vilmo's mother, Diane Brommenschenkel, told Sheriff Jeremy Thornton that her daughter was outside doing chores when the mother got a call from her daughter. When Brommenschenkel answered the phone, however, "there was nothing there," the report stated. Brommenschenkel looked outside and didn't see any movement, so she went outside to check, the report said. She told the sheriff that she found her daughter unresponsive, with a hay bale pinning her against the rail of the cattle feeder. The mother told the sheriff that she didn't know how to move the hay loader, but managed to use the loader to lift the bale off of her daughter. There were apparently no witnesses to the accident, so exactly how Vilmo became pinned is unknown. Brommenschenkel told the sheriff she believed her daughter was cutting twine on the bale and it slid and pinned her...MORE