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Obviously the greatest hazard is to be shot. This is relatively unusual and would reflect very badly on the shoot. Particularly if it happened more than once…. One would expect the shoot to carry insurance for serious bodily harm to beaters.
A more commonly occurring hazard on some long wood-land drives is to actually get lost and be left behind…. This happened once on a long drive,, when the beaters started to ask at lunch-time “Where is Helen”? It seems poor Helen was still rambling about in Bluebell whilst the rest of us were enjoying chicken and chips in The Crown. (The drives often have lovely names, North Lily , Deer Park, Beeches, Orchard etc.. The names can be totally misleading, Beeches should have been called Brambles for example).
Pheasants are also a hazard. A dead pheasant falling out of the sky is a heavy weight, if it should land on your head! Live pheasants also sometimes sit tight and fly up straight into your face. This happens mostly in kale. If you can hit one with your flag this scores many points with the other beaters.You cannot keep the bird, it will be added to the bag, sometimes even flat road-kill is added, if the keeper thinks the guns are struggling.
On Saturdays and holidays children sometimes come beating and these can easily be mislaid as many of todays youngsters seem to falter if asked to penetrate a bit of gorse or clamber a few thorny hedges.
Hedges and banks can be difficult to get through and over and beaters occasionally fall and hurt themselves.  Barbed wire is the worst as there is so much of it and it really rips clothing. And it is very embarrassing to be hung up with a leg each side of the top wire and have to shout for assistance.
Misunderstanding of instructions is also a problem. ‘Just jump that hedge and go over the next bank, go through the big field and the gorse bushes and walk the birds through the copse until you see Trevor’s line’ is a typical instruction that is apt to lead to misunderstanding.  A poor farmer who had had a triple by-pass operation was heard to mutter quietly ‘ I didn’t know I had been entered for the Grand National this year’, when receiving a set of instructions involving much jumping of hedges and gates.
Mud and waterways are common woodland hazards. The odd beater does go into a bog or loose his/her boots in the mud but this is fairly unusual on pheasant shoots as the birds don’t hang out in bogs very often.  Having to climb trees to try to get the sleepy birds to fly off at the end of the day when they are going to roost is the other extreme. Beaters who have tame monkeys instead of spaniels are well worth the extra £5 this costs, in these extreme circumstances.
Holes.
The problem with holes in fences is that game-keeper’s seem to think that beaters are very small and slim, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Hence you may be told to go “through the pen and out of the hole on the other side” .When you get to the other side, the hole in the bird-netting, which is erected to be about 2m tall, will turn out to be suitable only for weasels. You may well, like Winnie-the-Pooh be stuck there for some time, whilst getting slimmer.
Livestock.
A hitherto unmentioned hazard is that caused by livestock and wild animals. Sheep rarely pose a threat even to the most inexperienced of beaters. They do occassionally present even the most well-trained goundog with an irresistible temptation. Obviously, a beater-dog who chases sheep is a total disgrace and the owner will be fined a bottle of port. At the very least. If any damage should be caused to the sheep, or if the owner finds out, well you may need to hire the Personal Protection Dog mentioned in the For Sale pages. Let us hope he does not chase sheep. There are also, of course, the odd instances of wolves in sheep’s clothing. Unless the sheep have noticed anything odd, it is best for the beaters just to go on their way quietly, as normal. Or even better: keep chatting, see no evil, hear no evil...
Horses: Quite a few beaters are nervous of horses. All that needs to be said on this subject is that horses are a very nervous flight species of animal and regard people flapping white plastic with the outmost suspicion. Beaters may rest assured, they are at no risk. It is the horses that pose a risk unto themselves by doing something stupid.
In order to prevent this many shoots put warning-signs and monitors on the roads to prevent the beaters and guns from moving whilst groups of riders go by. Most horses actually tolerate gunfire well but very many, almost all, can be frightened by flapping plastic.
Cattle: A surprising number of beatressess confess to a fear of cattle, boviphobia. While it it is sensible to stay out of the way of bulls and cows with very young calves at foot, normal cattle pose little threat. Cattle are, however very curious by nature and may well follow the beaters and their dogs around. This can be slightly unpleasant, especially for the boviphobics.
To reassure these, it may be remembered that the number of beaters injured or killed by cattle in any average year is approximatly nil.,l.
In woodlands some beaters are worried about being hit by running deer. It is likely that the deer are even more worriedout being hit by running beaters. Roe-deer are considered more dangerous for beaters than Red Deer, because the roe-deer tend to stay still and then jump up very suddenly, sometimes very close to the beater. Obviously, if one was to be hit by a deer at 25 miles/hr, it would be very painfu. I therefore think it advisable to try to step out of the path of on-coming deer. A tree between oneself and the deer can also be a useful protective device.l
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