I think he should only be punished if he lets another child get pulled through the woodchipper.
I’m kinda serious. What he did was perhaps careless, maybe reckless, but mostly terribly unlucky. Nearly everyone has “wow, I nearly died/killed someone there” moments where in retrospect, we realise we were playing with more risk than we really should, but in most cases, the bullet whistles past and we just have an interesting story about how disaster nearly happened. For this guy and his child, it just unfortunately didn’t work out that way this time.
Punishing him won’t bring the child back.
He’s already ‘reformed’, I expect - in that he’s unlikely to let this happen again.
Even if it could be argued to be effective. to make an example of him to deter others, is it actually necessary?
If none of the above, then what is the purpose of punishment?
Gotta say I find it hard to believe there are people wanting the father charged.
It was an accident.
A terrible, gruesome, bone-chilling, horrifying accident.
Irresponsible? Truly? How do we know that that poor dad hadn’t told his six-year-old to stay right back from the chipper a thousand times? How do we know that that little kid wasn’t one who’d always been so well-behaved, so obedient, such “a good kid” every day of his life; and at that awful moment, wanted to “surprise” his dad by “helping.”
That young boy was more likely to have been killed in a car accident, choked on a hotdog, drowned, poisoned, or burned to death than to have died in the way that he did.
Honestly. A bit of compassion. Nobody was there - we know nothing but the tragic full stop of an entire story we’ll never know.
I think of that moment through the eyes of that dad whose day had started just like any other. Blood pounds in my ears and my breath almost stops.
No, I wouldn’t want any of those people prosecuted. A genuinely loving parent slips in their attention for one moment and the baby dies…they’ve been punished enough. As other people imply, it’s not as though they have a habit of doing this! Punishment should be for prevention and for reformation, not just because we as a society like to kick people when they are already broken.
Yes. This father brought his son along to work when he knew he would be working with dangerous machinery. You’d think it would be a basic safety practice to keep nonessential personnel, especially children and people not trained in how to use a wood chipper, away from a wood chipper when it is running.
Now, if a 6-year-old from the neighborhood had wandered in and decided to try out the wood chipper and gotten pulled into it, I wouldn’t say this guy was irresponsible. I would agree it was a tragic accident in that case. But this guy chose to bring a 6-year-old child to a place where he knew he would be using dangerous machinery. That’s the bit where he was irresponsible.
He did have other choices. He could have left the child home by himself. He could have arranged for someone else to care for the child. He could have rescheduled the job involving the wood chipper to a day when he had child care arranged.
I don’t necessarily think he should be charged with anything. I’m not sure there’s any penalty worse than what has already happened that society could impose on him. But we should be clear that bringing your children to work when you work with dangerous machinery is not something anyone should ever do.
i only have read a few written accounts. so i may have missed or not seen details.
even if the dad said ‘don’t help’ or ‘stand no closer’ doesn’t mean that is what the kid did. kids want to help, they often will jump into helping spontaneously even if you told them it isn’t needed previously. the kid sees an adult feed the chipper without much effort and thinks that it will be the same for them (not accounting for strength and size difference using kid level reasoning). kids need multiple warnings, and not just warnings they need WARNINGS. they naturally underestimate dangers and overestimate their abilities.
if the dad asked for the kid to ‘help’ then to do so without watching and being within arms reach was a huge mistake. even if the dad did that there is a danger that when the dad isn’t watching then the kid might more easily tend to spontaneously help in an unsafe manner.
Oh yes. With all these ‘other choices’ you somehow know he had, you also know that:
had he left the six-year-old at home by himself (and how you don’t see this as entirely irresponsible is mind-boggling to me. However…) an electrical fire wouldn’t have set the house alight and killed him;
that the last-minute child minder wouldn’t have let him ride his bike to the corner and he’d have been the wiped out in a police chase;
that the holiday care centre the boy was in on the rescheduled job day didn’t have a crazed gunman turn up and massacre the lot of 'em.
Each one an unfortunate, unforeseen scenario that would have made the news, and had someone cry out, “How irresponsible!”
Honestly. Parents protect their children the best way they can. Give the guy a fucking break.
I think people are pretty sick who want to charge somebody who have something like this happen to them. Sure, the guy was a screwup, but, I think he’s more than paid for it, it definitely won’t happen again…no more cause for the government to harass him. He’s got a funeral to think of. And more.
We had a large number of trees cut down a couple of years ago. The crew never left the wood chipper running when they weren’t feeding it. They had an on/off switch at the feed end and turned it off if they were going to be out of reach of the switch for even a moment. If anyone dared to come within their field of vision they turned it off. Safety was first. Getting the job done came second. If they couldn’t do something safely they wouldn’t do it.
I don’t think the father should be prosecuted but he should never be allowed to operate such machinery again (not that he’ll want to anyway). It is obvious that a six-year-old should not be unrestrained within 100 yards of a wood chipper. I would bet that the kids weren’t wearing hearing protection either. That alone is negligent (though, again, I wouldn’t prosecute him for it).
Sorry, but letting your 6 year old within 50 ft of an active wood chipper without physically restraining him from getting closer is a whole different animal than all the cases you mentioned. It’s a level of risk that’s utterly irresponsible, even if nothing had happened. The combination of dangerous machinery and very fast bad result means that a responsible parent wouldn’t have even let his kid into that situation. It’s not the kind of thing where you can trust a 6 year old to take any responsibility for their own safety, regardless of how strongly you warned them. It’s where a parent must step in and say, “No, this situation is not permissable”.
Do I feel terrible for the guy? Of course. But I’m not going to let him off the hook for being completely irresponsible and completely at fault for what happened to his son.
How do you know he was completely at fault for this incident? Are there details about how this occured, or are you just assuming he wasn’t paying attention or taking reasonable precautions?
Ok, here’s how he would not have been completely at fault – someone else came along and threw his son into the wood chipper. Otherwise, he brought his son to a dangerous work site, where the son shouldn’t have been at all, and supervised his son inadequately enough that he went through a wood chipper.
If that’s true, that the only people present were the father and his 3 school aged kids and no other adults, and the 6 year old was assisting in any way, shape, or form instead of being in an area where he physically could not get near the chipper, then yes, it’s the father’s fault. He allowed an incredibly dangerous situation to occur.
Here’s another article which states that the 2 other siblings were in the same (elementary) school, so I’d say that making one of them responsible for the 6 year old’s safety would have been an irresponsible act as well.
Ok, the father was being irresponsible. I still wouldn’t recommend prosecution. The justice system is too over-worked already to start taking on every case of stupidity. And I don’t see how the prosecution furthers the interest of justice.
It would be irresponsible to leave a 6-year-old home alone. However, it would be less irresponsible than bringing your kid to work when you’re working with dangerous machinery.
These two would be unfortunate, unforeseen scenarios.
Not all of them do. We wouldn’t need laws against child neglect if all parents did this.
This is how responsible people use a wood chipper. I’d bet they didn’t have anyone under the age of ten on their crew, either.
This guy is probably in violation of some child labor laws in Connecticut for having his children help him with the wood chipper. I’d be in favor of prosecuting him for that, because that might protect his other children from having something like this happen to them. We have laws against employing children to work with dangerous machinery for a reason.