Goodness me how I didn’t have an accident when I was first issued with a PPL (H) i don’t know. I had a PPL fixed wing with about 130hrs PIC time and I did a conversion onto PPL (H) as the station I was head stockman for wanted me to fly their machine. This was in 1982 and I was 24. I went solo at 9 hrs, received my PPL (H) at 41hrs and was with no mustering endorsement mustering into a portable yard at 43 hrs Total time helicopter on very difficult feral cattle. I remember getting into vortex ring state once in the wing of the yard about 80ft up and recovering ok. I had my only engine failure at around 230 hrs and auto'd ok while once again yarding feral cattle into a portable yard, it was right in the wings and I landed behind them and all the cattle went in, never lost a beast.
Thankfully I was never required to carry anyone and had a great power margin.
While there are many things that can get a new pilot into trouble i believe the worst is being fully loaded and operating on the upper limits of your power margins. If at all possible for your first 3 or 400 hrs don’t load your machine beyond 75% capacity of allowable load and if you do need too take it very gently. The R44 is a popular private machine but it can bite very hard if overloaded or out of C of G. Dont be tempted by that empty seat and ensure that you do carefull weight & balance calculations