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Work accidents among personal security professionals

Even if most of us might not remember the film The Bodyguard', there can very few of us who fail to remember the film's hit song. I Will Always Love You' has become one of the most iconic, most loved, and most hated songs, in the history of music. For those who love it, the sentiment and emotion of the film are heightened by the fact we all know that Kevin Costner's character, Frank Farmer, could die in a work accident at any minute as he attempts to save the life of his love and client, Rachel Marron (Whitney Houston).

Perhaps it is the audience's knowledge that if anything happens to Frank Farmer, it will not just be any old work accident, but also an act of selfless and passionate love that precipitates his end, which has helped make the soundtrack from the film the second highest grossing movie soundtrack of all time. It certainly is a highly emotionally charged situation.

It was remembering this film, which recently got me thinking about the work accident dangers of being a bodyguard. After a long trawl through statistics and anecdotal evidence on the subject, I discovered that it is indeed a dangerous job, only not as work accident prone as I had anticipated.

According to statistics from the US Bureau of Labour, being a bodyguard just scrapes in at number 15 in a list of the 15 most dangerous jobs in the world, with a 2.3 times higher risk of work accident fatality than the average occupation. The following table represents the Bureau of Labour findings:

So, as can be seen, bodyguards have a job that is 2.3 times more dangerous than average, yet this figure pales in comparison beside the fraught nature of fishing, an industry whose workers have a 21.3 times higher than average chance of being involved in a fatal work accident than those workers in ordinary jobs.

It is a chilling fact that the highest work accident risk to bodyguards is murder. Yet for those in the profession, this risk is just considered to be part of the job.

Whether a bodyguard is protecting a celebrity such as Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman or David Beckham, there is always a risk. Perhaps if John Lennon had had a more 21st century attitude to media management and personal safety, he might have had a bodyguard who would have saved his life on that fateful day of December 8 1980 when he was shot by Mark Chapman.

In fact, some believe that John Lennon in some way predicted his fate, when in the 1960s he said, "We'll either go in a plane crash or we'll be popped off by some loony."

Being involved in work accidents as they protect their celebrity clients is not the only risk bodyguards face. Most politicians and leading public figures also need bodyguards, a fact never more pertinently illustrated than by remembering the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Bodyguards take their job very seriously and are usually prepared to die "in the line of duty" as they protect a client. There have been numerous examples of this in recent years, particularly in places like Iraq and Lebanon where the security situation is unstable.

These deaths are despite bodyguards wearing protective body armour and often being armed themselves. Sometimes, if a bodyguard suffers personal injury while protecting a client, and he or she has not been provided with suitable personal protective equipment, a strong case for work injury compensation will be mounted.

Car accident compensation claims are not uncommon among bodyguards either, as they will frequently have to leave a scene at speed in order to protect the welfare of a client.

While, being a bodyguard might not always be as glamorous and come with as many amorous perks as in the film starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston, it certainly is a brave profession for anyone to choose as it always comes with a high work accident risk.

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