Blog Post

A 24-year-old man was killed in a grisly incident on Wednesday, when he fell into a wood chipper in a Tustin, California cul-de-sac. The man has been identified as Gabriel Gonzalez Ferrer, an Orange resident. The exact how's and why's of the death aren't available at this point but coworkers report that the man was standing at the back end of the chipper feeding braches onto the machine. A moment later, they said, he was gone.

The grisly remains were only identified on Thursday. Initial investigators at the scene couldn't even tell whether the mangled mess trapped in the blades of the chipper was a man or woman. The chipper along with the truck had to be towed away before investigators could begin conducting DNA rests to ascertain the identity of the victim.

The incident has raised questions yet again regarding the safety aspects of mobile wood chippers. This machinery is a huge danger to workers according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. A person standing at the mouth of the chipper feeding branches into the chute could easily be pulled in and trapped in its blades or get struck by the opening and closing hood of the machine. A total of 31 people have died as a result of wood chipper accidents in the ten year period from 1992 to 2002. And yet nothing seems to have been done to either make these death traps safer or phase them out altogether from the workplace.

The wood chippers remain popular among tree companies because of the efficiency they offer. Wood branches can easily be converted into tiny fragments. So too can humans, it seems.

A defective machine can cause irreparable physical damage. If you've suffered a work injury as a result of the faulty design of a piece of machinery, you have every right to seek compensation. Call the California personal injury lawyers at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.