The article reads as if the boy was on a job with the father. If that's the case then I have to ask WTF is the father allowing his 6yr old on a jobsite to begin with?
IMHO...the dad was flat out stoopid to let a kid that young around that chipper, I mean what the hell was he thinking..? RIP little guy..
I'd say its another case of losing respect for the dangerous equipment you use every day. Adults manage to get themselves sucked into chippers every so often. It only takes a second of not watching what you're doing.
Yes it must have been terrible...the poor kid wasn't old enough to understand what could happen, those woodchoppers pull in tree limbs ever so fast, the kid just got caught somehow, or didn't let go of the limb, and went on in...I suppose there won't be any workers comp claim since the kid was too young to work legally. For people who know these machines, don't they have any kind of 'operator kill switch' or shut off switch on them, i.e., the operator has something attached to his body? What in hell were the parents thinking to allow a kid that age to get anywhere near a wood chipper? I suppose the father being in the tree removal business wanted his sons to be chips off the old block.
Good God. That's something out of a horror movie. I'm so sorry for the father having to witness that.
There's an emergency stop but the chipping wheel has so much mass it's of little use. The biggest thing the emergency stop does is stop the feed wheels.