I'm obviously exaggerating. One of the things I recommend when a friend or acquaintance buys a box-store bike (after ignoring my initial recommendation not to buy one) is to immediately take it to a bike shop to be reassembled and re-tuned. With a proper tuning and assembly, they become substantially safer.

That being said, your experience is a fortunate one. It takes only half a turn in either direction on the headset washers to result in a failure that can break your collarbone. I've seen it firsthand.