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bigjoe

bigjoe

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 10, 2015
Messages
2,618
Location
VA
I took my son bow hunting this past Saturday. Got him up in his ladder stand.
I chose to hunt my Lone Wolf hang on. I climbed up using my lineman belt. Got the stand set and went to put on the safety tether above the tree stand. The lineman belt was not there. I fell about 15'. It was my fault I never checked to see if the caribener was all the way through the loop on the belt. Once I recovered my composer I realized what probably had happened. (I use self closing & locking caribeners) The loop where the caribener goes through had a a few stitches pulled out of it. The caribener caught the end of the loop and was never seated.
I got very lucky. I walked away with a broken rib and a very sore back. Please double check your harnesses.

Joe
 
Glad you came away with only minimal injuries joe. Wish you a speedy recovery and all the best!
 
I fell off a ladder. Not nearly as hi but it knocked my brain back to summer 1984. One minute I'm sitting in the sun with my teenage friends, the next I'm lying on the ground in pain with current friends holding me steady to keep me from moving. After morphing back and forth between the two time periods a few times my brain finally settled in the present. (Or so I believe)
This was at a hunt camp. Too far for help to readily come. I could move and feel all my extremities so the boys let me move on my own. I had fallen backwards and landed on my neck. I got lucky, too!


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The way that post started out I knew this was an injury, but feared it was your son that got hurt. Im glad your OK and thanks for the reminder. I think many of us get complacent after a few hunts and its the small things that can bite us.
Hope you recover quickly and good job taking your son out hunting. :cool:
 
I'm so glad you came out of that with minimal injuries!

Thank you for sharing this with us. I think this is a great reminder for everyone to double check their gear for safety, and in particular verify that any modifications are safe while you are on the ground! I know we all strive for streamlined hunting setups, but remember that no modification is worth serious injury or your life!
 
Thanks guys. Now on the light hearted side a 1/2 5th of Woodford was definitely was the best pain killer. Too bad it wore off at 3 am. LOL.
 
I'm happy to hear everything turned out ok although I'm sure those ribs are gonna be tender for awhile...at least Dr. Woodford's on call :) .
 
Glad things weren't as bad as they could have been. And Woodford does have medicinal qualities.

I recently switched over to autolocking carabiners. I like the fact they auto lock. I do try to push in the gate after attaching the biner to ensure it is closed and locked. That has been my procedure.

What new procedure / gear do you plan on incorporating to mitigate the risk of another occurrence?
 
sojourner said:
I recently switched over to autolocking carabiners. I like the fact they auto lock. I do try to push in the gate after attaching the biner to ensure it is closed and locked. That has been my procedure.
Click to expand...

That's a good switch IMO. On job sites I've seen unscrewed screw-lock biners far too many times to trust them. Even though they weren't supposed to be using them, guys that did would always say "I don't trust anything automatic, I want to know it's closed right every time" but inevitably every few days I'd see them climbing around with it unscrewed because they forgot to lock it :) .
 
I fell last year taking a 15' ladder tree stand down. I thought I could do it without anyone holding the ladder, shifted my balance and it let go of the tree. I was able to push my weight back to the tree and catch the trunk enough with my arm to slow the fall (as the stand hit the tree and fell forward). Ended up only having bad scrapes down my arm and a bruised ego. Safety is now my priority no matter how small the job


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Such a great reminder... I hunt private property in PA and the majority use ladder stands with no harnesses, and I am trying to help my boys who now hunt to understand that if their feet leave the ground, they should be tied in.


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I have had too many friends and family fall out of tree stands (5 total so far), and I'm surprised to see so many here who have experienced a fall. Spend enough time in a tree stand, and it's not a matter of if, but when. I stay attached all the way up and all the way down, even in ladder stands. We owe it to our friends and families to return home safe after each hunt.
 
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