Well, I guess I haven't really asked around how many cooks have died. Long story short. That's just not a statistic I've personally gathered (and such a statistic would be socially awkward to discuss).

A lot of what I was talking about in the top comments were just the anecdotes that I could personally verify with these spot-checks.

Waiters / Barbers / etc. etc. _ARE_ afraid of dying. Not necessarily the ones serving you, but their former coworkers aren't coming back because of the fear. Maybe dead-cooks have something to do with it. But I can say for sure that front-line workers are willing to talk about their fears (or their viewpoint on the fears of their former coworkers).