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Saddle Death… Stay safe out there.

You act like the N/S is the gold standard of saddle hunters...
And who's pushing it currently??
I'd bet they're on YouTube, and probably use click bait material to pay their bills..
Not even remotely on the level of 500 + eyes on your ideas like at this forum..
I don’t believe anyone on you tube is pushing it. I can bet there are more current posts on this site recommending the knaider swaider as a light weight climbing system than you can find on you tube. My whole point was this method would never be deemed safe by arborists etc. yet was made popular here. There must still be some demand for them because there is at least one reputable company selling them. For clarification I don’t think the aiders themselves are poor quality and unsafe but the method itself has problems. I understand companies should be held to high standards but to blame you tubers for saddle hunting accidents without considering what people are doing based on the content of this site is just ignorant. This site is considered the gold standard so when ideas catch on, safe or not, they are viewed as, at a minimum, “safe enough”. It is only speculation at this point about what happened in this tragedy, but from what we know about his gear, and his interest in the JRB climbing method he doesn’t seem to be the type of person being influenced by the you tube influencers. Seems like he was consuming things based on safety and something still went very wrong.
 
For me personally, almost everything about the JRB methods & system seems way overly complicated. There's no way I could use half of it because
there are too many different knots & I know I'd probably get one wrong on a bad day. Not saying there's anything wrong with the systems, I just feel like I have to be Harry Houdini to learn all that stuff & be able to do it in the dark when I'm flat exhausted.

I can one stick, rappel, srt, use steps & stands, all with minimum, light equipment, & have simple easy to tie safety back ups. Some of that stuff just overcomplicates areas that can create more problems then solve. To each their own for sure & my hat goes off to ones that are as proficient as the guy from 50 shades of gray, but not me. There have been too many times I tried learning some knots that I thought were right & when I tested them at ground level realized I missed a step or direction. I tend to stay away from too many steps & turns if possible.
 
I don’t believe anyone on you tube is pushing it. I can bet there are more current posts on this site recommending the knaider swaider as a light weight climbing system than you can find on you tube. My whole point was this method would never be deemed safe by arborists etc. yet was made popular here. There must still be some demand for them because there is at least one reputable company selling them. For clarification I don’t think the aiders themselves are poor quality and unsafe but the method itself has problems. I understand companies should be held to high standards but to blame you tubers for saddle hunting accidents without considering what people are doing based on the content of this site is just ignorant. This site is considered the gold standard so when ideas catch on, safe or not, they are viewed as, at a minimum, “safe enough”. It is only speculation at this point about what happened in this tragedy, but from what we know about his gear, and his interest in the JRB climbing method he doesn’t seem to be the type of person being influenced by the you tube influencers. Seems like he was consuming things based on safety and something still went very wrong.
It's not popular... :tired:
Was with the young and flexible.. for a short time, until some of the originals reported brown streaks on some climbs...
 
I’ve not read every single post regarding this tragedy but my prayers go out to the family, I want to leave it to the Good Lord and have faith that there is a reason for everything in his great plan of plans. So sad and unfortunate.

I am interested in understanding more of what happened. It makes you wonder about the knowledge base with autopsy results related to fall injuries.most people in signing the death certificate will not comprehend the written and actual cause of death on the tiny spaces have to complete the form.

In our Hunter Safety and Bow hunter classes years ago we used to say anything is better than nothing when hunting at height. Not true, as a rope or strap around the midriff can easily have you inverted before you even know it. I would argue that likely many of our upper bodies are much heavier than our lower extremities and makes a mid rig stylesystem more problematic.

it certainly is a wake up call or should be to all of us with our individual styles, systems, and techniques. Unfortunately accidents do happen. Safe checks before ascending and before descending are essential EVERY TIME you climb. For my classes at least, I would love to see the hunter and bowhunter Ed community develop best practices for the entire realm of saddle hunting.

I know some mentioned that if he had just used sticks it would have been safer. It is super hard for me to comprehend how climbing-down sticks is safer then rappelling down. Especially when statistically, most falls occur when climbing up or down. But again, there are many variables that we most likely will never know about with this situation.
 
I think a lot of people put more faith in autopsy than it deserves. Through my last job I had a decent amount of interaction with various coroners and medical examiners. Let's just say that cardiovascular disease is a diagnosis of exclusion that many people wound up with (meaning if you can't find anything else... That's what the evidence points to, so that's what gets written on the form.)

Basically what I'm trying to say is that it's another grey area that we may never get a definitive answer from. There's always going to be some level of question a unanswered with this sort of death. I do hope that trying to help our community has brought his wife some peace this far.
 
For me personally, almost everything about the JRB methods & system seems way overly complicated. There's no way I could use half of it because
there are too many different knots & I know I'd probably get one wrong on a bad day. Not saying there's anything wrong with the systems, I just feel like I have to be Harry Houdini to learn all that stuff & be able to do it in the dark when I'm flat exhausted.

I can one stick, rappel, srt, use steps & stands, all with minimum, light equipment, & have simple easy to tie safety back ups. Some of that stuff just overcomplicates areas that can create more problems then solve. To each their own for sure & my hat goes off to ones that are as proficient as the guy from 50 shades of gray, but not me. There have been too many times I tried learning some knots that I thought were right & when I tested them at ground level realized I missed a step or direction. I tend to stay away from too many steps & turns if possible.

That was my first impression too and second and third as I kept looking at it. But all the knots and hitches are tied at home, not in the woods. And they should be tested at home as well. Once I looked deeper, it’s not that complicated, it’s just really confusing to follow all the videos because they are an evolution over time as the system has developed.

The grand sum of it is you have two friction hitches (pre-tied) you run your rope and hitches over the crotch, connect to them, connect your foot loop (with secondary tie in point for redundant bridge) and up you go.

The system would be better understood if there were a simple concise video of how to build it and climb all laid out together instead of a bunch of references to previous videos.
 
It's almost impossible to tell exactly what caused this tragic accident, whether it was equipment, technique, or some combination thereof. Suffice to say that we are engaging in a dangerous activity anytime we leave the ground. Back when I taught hunter safety courses, the guiding rule for climbing was to always have three points of contact with your steps, ladder, or sticks. It's still solid advice. Let's be careful out there!

Rest in peace, Dane. My deepest sympathy to his family and friends.
 
My only experience with rappelling is a climbing tower at summer camp. One kid did go inverted about 25 feet up because he kind of kept his feet planted after he started letting line out. So maybe his feet got tangled somehow and he let too much line out.

i've also only rappelled a few times, on a big boulder as a kid

going down a tree, if you got your foot stuck between 2 branches and then let out line, couldn't you hang by your trapped foot?
 
Once I looked deeper, it’s not that complicated, it’s just really confusing to follow all the videos because they are an evolution over time as the system has developed.

The grand sum of it is you have two friction hitches (pre-tied) you run your rope and hitches over the crotch, connect to them, connect your foot loop (with secondary tie in point for redundant bridge) and up you go.
Complicated or not, pick up this video starting at 17:10 and tell me a guy who purchased a new saddle less than a month ago should be attempting it. This IS experienced climber-level stuff.

 
I’ve not read every single post regarding this tragedy but my prayers go out to the family, I want to leave it to the Good Lord and have faith that there is a reason for everything in his great plan of plans. So sad and unfortunate.

I am interested in understanding more of what happened. It makes you wonder about the knowledge base with autopsy results related to fall injuries.most people in signing the death certificate will not comprehend the written and actual cause of death on the tiny spaces have to complete the form.

In our Hunter Safety and Bow hunter classes years ago we used to say anything is better than nothing when hunting at height. Not true, as a rope or strap around the midriff can easily have you inverted before you even know it. I would argue that likely many of our upper bodies are much heavier than our lower extremities and makes a mid rig stylesystem more problematic.

it certainly is a wake up call or should be to all of us with our individual styles, systems, and techniques. Unfortunately accidents do happen. Safe checks before ascending and before descending are essential EVERY TIME you climb. For my classes at least, I would love to see the hunter and bowhunter Ed community develop best practices for the entire realm of saddle hunting.

I know some mentioned that if he had just used sticks it would have been safer. It is super hard for me to comprehend how climbing-down sticks is safer then rappelling down. Especially when statistically, most falls occur when climbing up or down. But again, there are many variables that we most likely will never know about with this situation.
Given that this is an accidental death with no apparent cause of death, it likely resulted in at least a limited autopsy (open the chest and remove the brain). If this happened in a county with a medical examiner, then that person is a fellowship trained forensic pathologist (ie an actual physician). I've conducted over 30 autopsies myself and seen over 100 forensic autopsies, and I can say pretty definitely that if a stroke, pulmonary embolism, or heart attack happened before the fall then the Pathologist will find evidence of it. Betting odds are good that if another background medical condition caused a fall there will be evidence of it. But positional asphyxia is a diagnosis of exclusion and can never be definitely proved as a cause of death.

Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk
 
Complicated or not, pick up this video starting at 17:10 and tell me a guy who purchased a new saddle less than a month ago should be attempting it. This IS experienced climber-level stuff.

I wanted to give you two likes but I couldn't. You nailed it.
 
I think a lot of people put more faith in autopsy than it deserves. Through my last job I had a decent amount of interaction with various coroners and medical examiners. Let's just say that cardiovascular disease is a diagnosis of exclusion that many people wound up with (meaning if you can't find anything else... That's what the evidence points to, so that's what gets written on the form.)

Basically what I'm trying to say is that it's another grey area that we may never get a definitive answer from. There's always going to be some level of question a unanswered with this sort of death. I do hope that trying to help our community has brought his wife some peace this far.
Cardiovascular disease is ubiquitous in anyone over the age of 40, but an infarction, pulmonary embolism, or stroke are very easy to see during an autopsy. It's definitely a complicating factor in a lot of death investigations, but when it's the cause of death its usually very obvious in the gross nd microscopic Pathology.

Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk
 
Complicated or not, pick up this video starting at 17:10 and tell me a guy who purchased a new saddle less than a month ago should be attempting it. This IS experienced climber-level stuff.

And it has just as much slack as 2TC. Every time he stands in the foot loop, his bridge drops a good 10 or 12”. It’s not like regular rope climbs where tending your hitch keeps your system slack free
 
And it has just as much slack as 2TC. Every time he stands in the foot loop, his bridge drops a good 10 or 12”. It’s not like regular rope climbs where tending your hitch keeps your system slack free
At 18:18 her left foot is clearly above her head

Edit: It was actually 18:26. And the girl in the video is clearly athletic.
 
And it has just as much slack as 2TC. Every time he stands in the foot loop, his bridge drops a good 10 or 12”. It’s not like regular rope climbs where tending your hitch keeps your system slack free

Granted I only watched a few minutes but that just seems like a good way to get hurt. I can’t believe people want to do that in the dark just to go hunting.
 
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