Between 2003 and 2007, there were an average of 13 deaths of emergency medical workers in the line of duty. 57% were ground vehicular accidents and 31% were aircraft accidents.
"X bad thing could happen" is an bad argument because it can be applied to literally any scenario. I could choose not to go get groceries because it's a great idea, until I get hit by a car.
When making policies on serious (and dangerous) topics for a large population, a single death is not a large risk. Even if this policy is wildy succesful, I'd still expect people with mental illness, police, and mental health processions to be occasionally killed in interactions (as they are today).
The point is these are difficult situations and the goal would be to decrease the rate of bad outcomes, likely not eliminate them.
Exchanging a larger number of deaths of civilians for a smaller number of civil worker deaths is a good trade. Dead civil workers mean less people willing to do that work, which means less help available to people overall.
I think your sentence is missing a "because" at the end. Why do you think that deaths are meaningless as an integer here but would be useful as a ratio? Usually I've heard this line by folks who want to minimize the perception of police killings.
