THE popular view of most professional sportsmen and women is a well-established one. Well paid, privileged to be doing something they love and boasting a profile that affords them the status of a celebrity, those of us who take pleasure in watching them perform would swap places with them in an instant.

But with all of those perks comes a trade-off of risk. Sometimes that risk is at a fairly low level, the psychological difficulties of dealing with the pressures of a career at the highest level perhaps or maybe the financial problems associated with having to retire with 30 years of employment still stretching into the future.

Some of the risks are much more serious, however. Every now and then, they even threaten a player’s life. And so while confirmation of Phillip Hughes’ death at the age of 25 yesterday morning was profoundly shocking, it was not without precedent.

Very occasionally, elite sportsmen and women die doing what they love. The risks are higher in certain sports than others – clearly if you’re a boxer or motor racing driver you’re more likely to suffer a life-ending incident than if you’re involved in snooker or bowls – but if you’re pushing yourself to the limit in a sporting arena, it is often impossible to eradicate the small possibility that something catastrophic could occur.

Hughes, an experienced international batsman who died after being hit by a bouncer during a Sheffield Shield match in Sydney on Tuesday, took every practicable precaution he could.

He was wearing a state-of-the-art helmet, but as he pivoted to hook a short-pitched delivery from Sean Abbott, his timing was out by a fraction of a second and he was struck on an unprotected part of his head behind his ear and towards the base of his neck.

The helmet manufacturing companies say it is possible to protect that part of the body, but that would mean preventing a batsman from being able to turn his head properly, a scenario that would increase the likelihood of a dangerous blow rather than reducing it.

Like a number of sports, cricket has witnessed a massive improvement in player protection and welfare over the course of the last two or three decades. Gone are the days when batsmen would stride out to face ferocious fast bowlers sporting nothing more than a baggy flat cap. Watch some of the footage of the fearsome West Indies attack from the 1970s and early 80s, and it’s impossible not to wince.

Yet as this week’s tragic incident proves, it is impossible to completely protect anyone facing a cricket ball hurled down at more than 150 km/ph. The players accept that, and while an acknowledgment of the risks does not diminish the sense of anguish and incredulity at Hughes’ passing, it provides a riposte to those who have already started calling for a radical overhaul of cricketing procedures in order to guard against the risk of a similar incident occurring in the future.

Sometimes, things just go wrong. Earlier this week, I was at Sedgefield Races having a brief chat with jockey Brian Toomey, who spent two weeks in an induced coma in July 2013 after suffering a crashing fall during a race at Perth.

The surgeons treating Toomey had to remove a large section of his skull, about the size of a hand, in order to reduce the swelling to his brain, and initially, he was given just a three per cent chance of surviving longer than a fortnight.

Remarkably, he has made a complete recovery, with a slight indentation to his head the only visible sign of an ordeal that could easily have cost him his life.

Sixteen months on, and you would imagine the last thing Toomey would be considering would be a return to National Hunt riding. Yet throughout the summer, he has been working closely with medics and the British Horseracing Authority in an attempt to prove his fitness for a return to the saddle. As things stand, a formal adjudication is expected in the New Year.

“Why wouldn’t I want to carry on doing the one thing I love more than anything else,” Toomey asked me during a previous interview, a sentiment that says much about the mindset that top-level sport demands.

Tragically, Hughes never had the chance to consider a resumption of his career, but had he come out of his coma, it is safe to assume it would not have been long before he was asking his doctors when he would be able to pick up a bat again.

Had he returned to the crease, he would have done so fully aware of the ongoing risks. Statistically, those risks are negligible, but that is not to say they do not exist. Sadly, tragedies such as the one that has ended Hughes’ life remind us of that fact.