Reading this thread I have laughed more times than I can count....
A jury awarding $1.5M to this guy seems mathematically correct,... treble damages and all that. However, I do not believe he deserves the money, and in all reality, he will probably never see a dime of it unless the actuaries feel that is a better deal than the cost of an appeal.
I myself have had three close calls with a table saw out on the jobsite. Every time the fence was being used. On the first occasion I was working a piece of pre-finished oak flooring to transition to tile, a "threshold" of sorts. Everything was going fine until..... and then I had kerf sized `dado` across the tip of my thumb just barely deep enough to draw (a hint of) blood.
Yes, my bad. Too many fingers WAY too close to moving parts. Lesson learned....since that day I cannot think of how many push sticks I have fabricated on site to keep my hands away from the blade.
Then one day I was ripping small pieces,... using a push stick and BANG. To this day I don't really know what happened but a sharp pain ran up my had all the way to my shoulder. It felt like when batting a ball and you hit it 'wrong'. It was not until I was nailing up the pieces I had just cut (above my head) that I saw this small rivulet of blood leaking out my from under my glove. Ironically, there was no hole in the glove, But it did rip the palm of my hand open to the tune of seven stitches... go figure. As best as I can figure, I was `doing all the right things`. However, The lessons drawn from the experience was to 1) slow down and, 2) increase caution (read: pay more) attention.
The final occasion was just this past year. I was ripping a FJP board down to size, and it began to bind. At the time I was using both hands to guide the board. I decided the doing anything more with the board was my 'least safe' option. I felt that if I tried to 'force it' the outcome would be tragic.
I had the foresight to make sure that the rest of my body was well clear of the board. Good thing too, for the instant I lifted my left hand off the board to kill the power, it kicked back and launched across the room. Fortunately the hole was to be covered by a cabinet, and thus did not have to invest a lot of time repairing the hole it made in the wall.
The thing about table saws, and I think most everyone will agree, is that sooner or later a table saw will do something that was at least partially unpredictable. With that knowledge, the best we can do is operate the tool smartly to prevent a human tragedy.
From my life experiences in general I have found that there is no point making something idiot proof,... The quality of idiot improves at a rate which is greater than the rate of prevention.
