Last night, I was flattening wide boards of rough mahogany on my jointer and took off the guard following a suggestion in one of the prestigious wood magazines (it talks about flattening boards up to 50% wider than your jointer. Mine is 8") . Unfortunately, I did not build the supplemental fence that was suggested. The glove on my left hand got caught in the spiral cutters and I ended up in the trauma unit at Duke. I lost part of 2 fingers.
** I now know that wearing the gloves was a mistake. Was trying to protect myself from splinters)
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don't take short cuts when it comes to your health and well being. I'll be paying for this lack of judgement for a long time.
The reason I am posting it under Neanderthal as I am seriously thinking of switching to primarily hand tools.