A friend of mine completely tore his ACL and meniscus after an axel attempt gone wrong. It's gonna take a year for him to completely recover, but even then I doubt he would come back. I'm sure he's not scared of skating per se, but since skating is hard on the knees (even if he pursues dance), the chance of re-injury is high.
My take on this is -- yes, there are risks, and the *chances* of injury are higher while on the ice than off the ice. However, the actual chance of injury varies from person to person, and only you can evaluate if skating's worth that risk.