Although I can kind of see the guy's point. I'd have made it explicit that he was going to be crushed.
The thing I love most of all about Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is the Fate Point system. Essentially you each have 'get out of badness' cards. You get some at the start of your career, and earn more by doing 'Fatey' things like save the world, or tell an incredibly funny joke in character. They don't overrule the referee completely, but they prevent total death/losing the mission etc. We also allow them to be used to do things the players know to do, but the character doesn't. Like set up an ambush, or run a special scam. The main thing is that it's up to the player to say when they are used, and so the referee can concentrate on simply being realistic. If the player consistently makes an arse of themselves and never does anything adventurey then they die off fast, but not instantly.