not all saws have an inertial brake. I'm guessing newer husky saws (by that, I mean made in the last several decades) have an inertial brake but are also set if a saw has a kickback event pushing the saw out into the user. It's important to have both hands on the saw and stick with the consumer stuff unless one knows well enough why they don't have to.
As far as danger, I've seen three chainsaw accidents in folks that I know or relatives of folks I know.
1) my great uncle was cutting alone in the woods without a buddy and cut the inside of his leg. He made it to the hospital (barely), but died of complications two days later (Septicemia or something similar)
2) my grandfather, a retired farmer, experienced a kickback into his upper quadricep - 67 stitches. He was in the woods before the stitches were out and died later of a heart attack.
3) a coworker's brother, some kind of tradesman I think (but not a woodsman) was cleaning up storm damage cutting somewhere around head level and received a kickback to the neck and died.
#3 sounds far fetched (no chain brake). I probably wouldn't mention it without having a news reference. I hadn't read the news story until years later (hearing about it in person sounded kind of fishy - especially since word of mouth often ends up nowhere near the original story) and thought of kickback as something that pushes you out or bounces the saw out and into your leg. The older a saw is and the slower the chain speed, probably the greater chance that the saw pushes you out.
https://archive.triblive.com/news/man-dies-after-chain-saw-accident-2/
I think a timberman with years of experience can probably operate an older saw with no brake safely, but I know I wouldn't want to do it long (and I"ve cut a fair amount).
Chainsaws are a lot like tablesaw kickback events - sometimes you get some warning signs, and a lot of people respond by trying to push through rather than stopping. Once the event occurs, it's faster than your reactions will ever be.
Both hands on the saw.
