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My first glimpse of the boy was him holding up a Stop sign to halt traffic. This is on a road with a speed limit of 30 I believe, that people regularly race down. He didn't know what he was doing, and finally his father noticed he had halted a car and had him flip it to Slow. He was in a hard hat, and looked about 7 years old.
Later in the day he was actively feeding in large branches, not heavy, but bulky and approximately 10 ft long or so. His father and the work crew weren't paying ANY attention to him. I was stunned. As a mother, this is the kind of thing I always feared of my ex-husband, who seemed oblivious to anything safety related.
Perhaps the mother would have no issue with the child working with his dad? It wasn't the home owner, but someone they had hired. I thought about calling and reporting it, but I wasn't sure if this was as serious as I felt it was?
After the job was being wrapped up, the dad was watching the boy play with a couple of other children in the street, when another neighbor's dog got out and had a close call when it darted out in front of the car. The dad proceeded to tell the dog owner that the dog was almost hit and was definitely letting him know by his tone that he thought he was irresponsible...
I'm living in a weird neighborhood of some wonderful neighbors, and some meth heads and various versions of scary/trashy people. It's been past time for me to move, which I'm planning on doing when my lease is up. I more often than not will speak up, but I'm 1)getting sick of the bs in my neighborhood 2)have experienced some mild retaliation recently 3)figured it likely wouldn't have made a difference.
I am conservative in regards to my behavior and how I raised my own son. Maybe this wasn't as big of a deal as I feel it was? There certainly have been children that have died in wood chipping accidents, but am I just paranoid?
No you are not. It one thing to have the child doing traffic control, (Not that I think @ 7 he should be). And a totally different level for the child to be feeding a wood chipper.
It does violate OSHA safe work laws, to have someone that young operating the machine.
This is very sad. I can understand a father wanting to teach his kid his profession but it should start at about age 12. Sometimes parents take their kids to the job because they don't have day care.
I once had a man come clean a small koi pond and he brought a 4 year old and an 7 year old to "help". I saw the man was not attentive to his kids and that the kids were distracting him. I was paying by the hour and this made me mad. I was also afraid for the kids as we had poisonous snakes and loose boulders and the boys were playing on the rocks.
Finally I went out and told the father I wanted to bring the boys inside for a snack and I got them involved in a game so the man could do his work. When the job was finished I informed him I was unhappy he had brought his kids and he should have called to get permission before he just showed up with them.
There is a liability issue involved too when people get injured on your property and people do not hesitate to sue even if it is their fault. This father the OP talks about is irresponsible and the property owner should have had him leave the kid in the car or take him to day care.
Was the child using the machine properly? If so, what's the big deal. Maybe he was 12 and just small for his age? I think people do FAR more harm not letting children grow up and learning to do for themselves....
My dad started showing me how an engine worked when I was four, and I'd help him clean the carbs. I started shooting rifles when I was eight and got my first one when I was nine. He showed me how to use a table saw and lathe around the time I was 11.
He never took me on a job with him, had me on the work floor, or operate any of that stuff unless he was directly supervising me, though.
Was this a company paid to come in and do the tree work or was this an individual who rented the machine and did the work himself?
If this was a company, I would call their office and explain (without judgement) what you saw. They have to carry insurance and it would skyrocket or even get dropped if their insurance company knew a minor was operating heavy machinery. OSHA would have a conniption fit with any child operating a blade machine... even a lawnmower or pizza dough mixer.
If this was a DIYer, then just smile and nod as you see them on the street.
There is nothing wrong with teaching a child good, honest labor at the proper time. On a company's insurance is not the proper time or place.
Just 2 days ago at a nearby shopping center, I was walking back to my vehicle. Walked past an SUV parked in front of me. The vehicle was running. Unoccupied except for about a 4 month old baby in a car seat asleep. No adult. I sat in my vehicle to observe who would be dumb enough to do that and it turned out to be a well put together woman coming out of the liquor store with her bag of stuff. Had she done this in the Atlanta area, she might have lost her SUV and her child.
In my younger days, I had classmates in my rural community who operated heavy farm equipment. Some would drive tractors towing several wagons of cotton to the gin miles away along rural roads with their legs not long enough to reach the foot pedals. They had to get down from the seat and stand up to hit the right pedal. No one thought anything of it.
Was this a company paid to come in and do the tree work or was this an individual who rented the machine and did the work himself?
If this was a company, I would call their office and explain (without judgement) what you saw. They have to carry insurance and it would skyrocket or even get dropped if their insurance company knew a minor was operating heavy machinery. OSHA would have a conniption fit with any child operating a blade machine... even a lawnmower or pizza dough mixer.
If this was a DIYer, then just smile and nod as you see them on the street.
There is nothing wrong with teaching a child good, honest labor at the proper time. On a company's insurance is not the proper time or place.
This isn't like a lawn mower where you could lose a toe or a foot but something that chops the human body into tiny bits. I grew up on a farm and my siblings and I drove heavy equipment at young ages but this is absolutely stupid. We did logging on our farm and my father insisted that everyone who used the chain saws to cut down trees and to cut them into logs be fully trained. Just because a 12 year old can lift a chain saw doesn't mean that they should be using one
Last year, in our area, the owner of a wood chipping company got caught and went through the machine. If even a grown man who knew all of the safety rules and proper procedures could be accidently killed I would seriously worry about a child using the same equipment. Witnesses said that he was just "feeding in branches" like the 7 year that the OP was writing about. Even with other adults right there paying attention they couldn't turn off the wood chipper in time to prevent his death.
The news reported later that the homeowner and even some neighbors who saw all the bloody wood chips had serious nightmares and needed followup mental health care.
Chippers are dangerous and some are more dangerous than others.
Chippers very in capacity from home owner models that can only handle on twig at a time to commercial ones that swallow trees.
Safety equipment also varies... new ones have many features to protect a skilled operator and old ones may not.
There are many things I don't let the kids do and some still think I'm to permissive... my 7 year old nieces was using my cordless drill to drill holes in 1/2 inch plywood for a school science project and a neighbor came over to see why a child was using a power tool...
Some of my best memories were as a young child on my grandparent's dairy farm mowing the hay and bringing it in... started driving the tractor with baler in tow at age 4... would steer it down the windrow while my uncle would stack the bales coming up from the baler...
At 10, I would drive the tractor to the field and cut the morning grass...
Heck... we use to love to ride in the back of grand dads pickup... that would be child endangerment today.
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