Does the person directing the plane to parking not risk getting ingested by a jet engine?
A marshal should always ensure that he is in the line-of-sight of the pilot, failing to do so will effectively mean that the pilot is losing its extra sets of eyes. It is unable to see the hand gestures of the marshal guiding him into a parking spot.
To be visible for a modern jet liner pilot, you have to be meters in front of the nose of the aircraft. In the picture below, you have to be roughly on the right side of the orange line to be visible to the pilot. Modern airports use a digital marshal on a screen mounted to the terminal building.

Incidents of people getting sucked into the engine mostly happen due to miscommunication. Someone already walking up to the rear wheels with the blocks while the pilot spins up the engines to move the plane a little bit forward.