Greg, I expect none who frequent this forum to pass away becouse of sailing catamarans. Fatalities are not very common, and I suppose most people on this forum are conscious about potenial problems. I would rate sailing catamarans as a very low risk sport. It's a technical sport, so one needs to take care of equipment and understand the working environment (wind and water), but I definately view this sport as safe.
Some do press the limits, like going on offshore trips on small cats. Those guys usually know what they are doing and take every precaution possible.
I know of only three fatal accidents from sailing cats over the last years. Johannes Haupl, Sven Schang and now this 11 year old girl. There has probably been many close calls, but we have no system for collecting those. Perhaps we should make an online database to collect those? In rock climbing, where death rate is rather high if you goof up, we have a system for collecting information about all accidents and potential accidents.