The father of the two-year-old boy who died last month after falling out of a skid steer has been charged with second-degree reckless homicide.
Waupaca County News reports that the county's district attorney filed a Class D felony charge against Cadem Schachtscheider, 39, St. Lawrence last week. He's expected to make his an initial court appearance on June 1.
According to the criminal complaint, Schachtscheider called 911 on April 5 and reported that his son had been crashed by the machine. He told authorities that he was using the skid steer to clear manure and the boy was sitting on his lap. While he was lowering the bucket, the boy fell forward and got his head pinned between the cross members of the bucket boom and the frame of the machine.
The child was airlifted to a hospital in Neenah, then transported to Children's Hospital in Milwaukee, where he later died.
The incident was not the first time where Schachtscheider's children were involved with a skid steer accident. In 2017, his then five-year-old son was seriously injured when the machine's hydraulic bucket tore the skin off his left leg, from his knee to his ankle. That child was airlifted to the hospital for multiple surgeries. Two years earlier, another son, who was six at the time, drove the skid steer into his older brother, sending him to the hospital.
If convicted, Schachtscheider could face up to 25 years in prison.
Categories: Wisconsin, Rural Lifestyle