If you are from Connecticut, chances are you heard about the horrific incident out of Salem involving a 6 year old boy and a wood chipper. If you do not live in Connecticut and you haven't heard of the story, you are about to read about a heart wrenching tale that occurred earlier this week. So enough set up and on to the grim details. A father, who owns a tree removal company, was working with his 3 sons in his yard clearing debris and feeding branches through an industrial size wood chipper. As he turned his back for a few seconds, his 6 year old son attempted to feed a large branch into the wood chipper. The branch was grabbed and sucked into the wood chipper. Unfortunately, the young boy couldn't disentangle himself from the branch and was dragged in with it. The young boy died that day. Being a parent now, I keep on thinking about what that father must be going through at this point and what my reaction would be if I was in his shoes. For any parent out there, some emotion must come out just hearing about this. Whether it be anger at the father for letting his son help (which I think is over reaching personally) or incredible sadness at the loss of the son (my reaction), this horrific event brings some emotion out. Accidents happen all the time when parents turn their backs for just a second, but I think this tops the list at being the worst accident that could happen for a parent.
As I keep on trying to put myself in the father's shoes, my reactions keep on changing. At first, after my wife saw the story on the news and asked me what I would do, I said I would jump in the wood chipper after him, thus ending my life as well. I don't know about other parents, but at first I couldn't envision how I would be able to live with myself after such an incident occurred. I imagined the grief I would feel, the questions I would have of myself, the despair. I started to waver, however, between jumping into the wood chipper after him and not doing so. I began to see my first reaction as being incredibly selfish. What about my wife after all? Why should she have to go through losing a son and a husband. She would feel just as much grief as I would in that situation and would be even worse off if she lost her husband as well. So as I eventually got past the suicidal aspect of my reaction to the event, I still have trouble envisioning how I would function if such an event occurred to me and my family. I have now come to the point where I know I would eventually recover somewhat, but it would take a very long time for me to heal and to move past the event itself, the loss, anger, and guilt. Luckily, I don't have to think too much about it because it didn't happen to me or my family, but I have a son and I can see him wanting to help with dangerous tasks around the yard or in my work shop.
It boils down to a parent growing eyes in the back of their head, or at least attempting to do so. Even if a parent is a vigilant as possible, it doesn't guarantee that an accident won't happen, or that a parent won't miss something at some point. There have been too many instances where a parent turns their head for a split second and something happens to their child. I just hope that it never happens to me or my family because it would be very hard to cope with. I keep coming back to the fact that a parent must remain as vigilant as possible. I guess that is my fixation at this point, trying to work myself up to the point where watching our son every second is second nature to me. Yet even then, I know there will be times where I will have to turn my head for a second and trust that he will be okay. Luckily, I don't own a tree removal service and don't have an enormous wood chipper around the yard. But I do have a slew of other dangerous tools in my garage from circular saws, band saws, table saws, nail guns, power washers, etc, etc. There is a time and place to let children help with projects, it just must be done with a very watchful eye. I only hope that I can be as watchful as I need to be when the time comes and prevent something like this from happening to my family. So as the week ends, I keep my thoughts and prayers with the family from Salem, the tragedy of losing a son, and hope that they can pull together and work through this terrible incident.
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