Family sues after man shredded to death in cemetery wood chipper

FLEMINGTON, N.J. (TCN) — A man died a gruesome death while using a wood chipper at a cemetery in July 2024, and his estate has now filed a lawsuit claiming the machine was defective, according to court documents obtained by Law & Crime.

On July 10, 2024, Eonias Mateo‑Perez, 22, was working at Saint Magdalen Cemetery in Flemington using a Bandit Industries wood chipper called “Intimidator 19XPC” when the fatal incident occurred.

According to the complaint, the machine lacked proper safety features usually seen on other wood chippers and it malfunctioned. Mateo-Perez was drawn into the feed system, where he was shredded at a “high rate of speed.” 

The wood chipper is one of the most powerful on the market, and according to the manufacturer’s site, the feed wheels and rollers (the mechanism that pulls the wood into the machine) generate more than 10,800 pounds of pulling power. 

As part of his landscaping duties at the cemetery, Mateo-Perez was feeding tree branches into the chipper. The complaint alleges he had no prior understanding of the machine’s lack of safeguards and found himself being pulled into the machine with no way to stop it. He died shortly after.

His estate brought the claim under the New Jersey Product Liability Act, seeking damages for “the loss of his companionship and prospective services” as well as expenses incurred by funeral services and other end-of-life care. According to the suit, the machine “did not properly shut off and did not prevent a user being drawn into the machine.”