I posted this in another thread quite some time ago:
Several years ago, not too far from here, a man was baling (big round bales) and was doing something that it turned out he shouldn't have... ended up he got caught up in the machine and it torn both his arms off at the shoulders. He walked to a neighbours and banged on the door for help, wife came out and **** near fainted! He was covered in blood and naked, except for his boots...did I mention his clothes were torn off also? He lived...apparently his arms having been torn off instead of cut off was what saved him. The arteries closed up a great deal because of being stretched past the breaking point. The guy that knew him and told me about him said he became kind of a bitter person after that...
Most times it's very time consuming to actually shut the machine off if it gets plugged up. Kick a bit of the material in and it disappears... a couple more kicks and then suddenly WHOOMP! it's all gone. Digging it out by hand is almost always harder and takes much longer, and to some people, time is too "valuable" to "waste" so they take dangerous shortcuts that most times work and on the odd occasion, doesn't. That's when we hear about stories like this.
Bird did put it best.."When we were lucky, we got away with it."
Some days, your luck just plain runs out...