Smokes! That was a gnarly set of pictures. You see that his shirt or jacket is wrapped around the work piece, it dragged him in. He probably had his arm over the work dabbing on some coolant or was removing chips.
That looks like a healthy engine lathe, when they're hunkered down in "back gear", nothing except a power failure would stop it. Belt driven lathes would slip, but the end results would have probably been the same.
He must have been at the shop alone with no one to call over quick. A few shops I worked in had a standing rule that nobody was allowed to work alone. Not that I've always obeyed it.
Bob