Near Miss: Almost Sliced My Thumb Off with a Festool Track Saw on an LVP Job in North Jersey

So I'm in this old ranch house in north jersey installing mohawk puretech lvp for a flipper who was on a tight timeline, and I'm rushing to cut a bunch of planks around a wonky doorway. Grabbed my festool ts 55 track saw cuz it's my go-to for straight clean cuts on vinyl, but I forgot to double-check the blade guard after swapping it out earlier. The damn thing binds on a warped plank, kicks back, and nearly takes my thumb clean off - blood everywhere, $800 in potential ER bill if I'd hit an artery. Heart was pounding like a jackhammer, but I wrapped it up and finished the job without calling it quits. Moral of the story, always test your setup on scrap first, especially when the client's breathing down your neck for a $4500 install. Guys in the flooring contractors network were sharing similar stories last week, glad I dodged that bullet.

Don't mess around with track saws without clamps securing the material - saw a guy in my crew lose part of a finger last year on a similar rushed job, ended up with workers comp hell and a six-week downtime.