Fall Into Wood Chipper Kills Tree Trimmer

An Orange County tree trimmer feeding branches into a wood chipper was pulled into the shredding machine and killed.

The Los Angeles Times identified the victim as Gabriel Gonzales-Ferrer, 24.

Gonzales-Ferrer was "was standing at the back end of the chipper, throwing branches into it with his co-workers nearby," Tustin police Sgt. Pat Welch told the newspaper. "One of them looked over, and he was gone."

The Wednesday afternoon accident in Tustin is being investigated by the California Occupation and Safety Health Administration.

Police called to the residential area just after 4 p.m. found the landscape worker's body inside the wood chipper.

Wood chippers shred branches and tree trimmings into mulch.

Thirty-one people have been killed in wood chipper accidents between 1992 and 2002, according to a 2005 Journal of the American Medical Association report.