Glad you are still here to give us the lesson!

Have had similar experiences. Had one just the other day---ripping a
thin piece of oak for a face frame for wife's bookcase. 6 1/2 feet
long, 1x1 inch wide. Didn't support offcut properly. Once it severed,
the 1" x 79" piece bounced on the offcut table, which 8 inches low
because I was lazy, and landed squarely on the spinning blade, which
then launched it like a missile straight backward, where I would have
been standing if I had been an idiot. A contractor friend taught me to
always stand to the side when cutting anything that could kick back...
so I was to the side, pushing with a (wooden!) push stick, and only got
a foot-long scrape on my right arm as the missile sailed past and landed
in the yard 20 feet away.

My lesson? Reinstall the blade guard and anti-kickback that came with
my $90 homeowner's special? Heck no, in pine it cuts a deeper groove
than the blade. STAND TO THE SIDE and use infeed and outfeet rollers or
tables, and take the time to set the damn things up properly.