With that small amount of info I have no idea what did happen, but it could happen. All you need to do is get your shirt sleeve caught in a chipper of that size and it could drag you all the way through. Every few years you hear horror stories of people getting 'processed' in farm equipment (a kid got stuck in a baling machine here a while back). They are industrial-strength machines and don't need to have the material fed into them - they pull it right along. (unlike the small chipper at the end of 'Fargo'!)

Sara

If the input chute will accommodate a human body, it could probably process it with little to no difficulty. If the chute couldn't, it would just pull the body in and chew it up piece by piece. I worked in an agricultural capacity for the last quarter century. Workmens comp rates for us were astronomical and there were some very stringent regulations about using help who were not legally adults. Does that tell you anything about the machinery we use?

Hopefully, this company will not be marketing bags of special "high-nutrient" mulch.

I have fed a lot of branches into chippers. Most have safety features such as a two short lengths of cable you can grab to stop the intake rotors.
A large branch can have a side branch that can push you in as the whole branch is drawn into the machine. Or a branch can snag your clothing and pull you in.
It's damn dangerous, and you gotta be careful, or you'll end up looking like a bunch of Pringles.
Mike

That is unfortunate. It doesn't take much to get caught into the machine such as accidentally tripping over the branch... Maybe this worker was working all day and was tired...

Thanks, everyone, for responding. I've never been around a wood chipper before, so I naively figured that there were safety measures in place that would 100% prevent a human body from being chopped into pellets.

I cant imagine the horror for the victim and for his family.

You have to be careful around the big chippers, because the tree moves in really FAST and the chute is big enough to take in a human body (mangling it badly, but bodies are squishable).

When an arborist was removing a cluster of huge pines for our neighbor, the two guys feeding the chipper had safety harnesses limiting how close they could get to the input area, and were wearing snug sweatshirt type tops and no belts or suspenders. They could get close enough to easily start the trunk into the chute, but no closer.

Everybody else piled the branches and stayed away.

Sounds like an episode of Criminal minds I saw recently. But seriously, I have a chipper that takes in 3" branches, it is the one with 4 wheels, you can pull with a tractor and it gets quite violent and fast with the branches, I can imagine a industrial one.

But then again, who knows. It just may be foul play. Maybe they can get a tox screen if they can find enough of the guy/gal. I would think you would be dead or out cold to let that happen by another persons hand. Yeah, nothing is left, probably.