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Saddle Death… Stay safe out there.

I feel like this thread has run its course and we are all just re-stating our opinions. Good discussion within but becoming repetitive.

Dane is dead, that sucks and can't be changed. Dane's wife is taking this opportunity to remind us all to be safe and practice. She sounds like an amazing person because of that, we should heed her advice regardless of our opinions or questions on why her husband died.

/Thread. (IMHO, with personal hubris of my multiple repetitive replies including this one acnowledged)
 
Let's make sure we keep this thread on topic everyone.

I think we need to make an important distinction between saddle safety and climbing safety. In general I think hunting out of a saddle is at least as safe, if not safer (when proper equipment is used) that hunting out of a treestand. There have been a lot of different climbing methods tried, whether they be on here, other forums, facebook or youtube. Some of them are really good, some of them are really sketchy. While they may be used by a saddle hunter, they do not represent saddle hunting and should not be lumped in with saddle safety, they should be considered climbing safety. Does the line blur when we're talking about something like SRT or DRT? Yes, but I still think it is important to make the distinction between the actual saddle hunting aspect and the climbing aspect.
 
It looks like Dane was climbing in a Drey. Without going down too many tangents, if somebody out there is climbing in a Drey or RCH and is concerned that they may be a bit... topheavy, let's say, they might consider adding a chest harness to their setup to raise their point of attachment relative to their center of gravity. The link is the first thing I saw and contains this quote:

" The chest harness is supposed to keep the climber upright in the event of a fall. Also possibly handy if you're lowering an injured climber for example. Certain devices (such as some self belay devices), require you to wear a chest harness. Other situations might lend themselves to using one, like when wearing a large pack."


I keep seeing videos of people climbing with day packs and sticks and whatever else strapped to their back. If this describes you, maybe you would be more comfortable adding a simple chest harness to your system.
 
Iron_llama said:
It looks like Dane was climbing in a Drey. Without going down too many tangents, if somebody out there is climbing in a Drey or RCH and is concerned that they may be a bit... topheavy, let's say, they might consider adding a chest harness to their setup to raise their point of attachment relative to their center of gravity. The link is the first thing I saw and contains this quote:

" The chest harness is supposed to keep the climber upright in the event of a fall. Also possibly handy if you're lowering an injured climber for example. Certain devices (such as some self belay devices), require you to wear a chest harness. Other situations might lend themselves to using one, like when wearing a large pack."


I keep seeing videos of people climbing with day packs and sticks and whatever else strapped to their back. If this describes you, maybe you would be more comfortable adding a simple chest harness to your system.
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I have extra slings and was actually thinking about implementing this when I SRT climb and rappel since I have them already with me. Might give it a try tonight to see how it feels, and it's a simple thing to implement to prevent a inversion accident.
 
Update based on current responses (n=56):
Average age = 42 (20-65)
Average BMI = 29 (22-40; overweight >25, obese > 30); 30% of respondents = obese, 14% = normal
Average YRS hunting = 26 (1-60)
Average YRS bow hunting = 19 (1-53)
Average YRS saddle hunting = 4.4 (1-20); 66% less than 5 yrs
% experienced an unplanned fall = 16/56 (28.6%)
% injured requiring med attention = 1/56 (1.8%)

View attachment 71765
 
If he was in a dryad without the hammock deployed and all his climbing gear was at the bottom of the tree, I could easily see how the harness that comes with the drey could cause suspension trauma, especially for a heavier guy. Unclear how he got up 6 ft with his climbing gear at the base of the tree but maybe he had a stick that fell off?
 
thedutchtouch said:
Interesting. From that update this almost becomes a non saddle related death.
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How so? It now sounds like suspension trauma like normal fall arrest harnesses caused blood build up to his legs, he was unable to get himself relief, called for help, passed out around the time the other hunter arrived. Passing out allowed him to go inverted, which probably rushed all that blood back into his system. 260 lbs of weight on his lungs and a ton of non oxygenated blood rushing to the heart caused an accelerated suffocation. I just want to know what happened that had him just sitting there suspended for so long in the RCH?
 
Crawdaddy4 said:
Foremost, I can't imagine the loss this family is currently having to navigate. The thought of going out to engage in one of my hobbies and not coming back is just unimaginable. My thoughts, prayers, and support are definitely being extended to this family!

I understand an inherent risk is present in any activity that is executed in an elevated position, but I'm a firm believer in a healthy risk/reward balance. Not being a professionally trained climber in an arborist or rope-access capacity, I'd personally NEVER attempt that JRB method. I'm 42 years old with 4 kids and a wife that I/they are eager for me to come home to them. I will just keep packing my climbing sticks into the woods as my ascending/descending method!

@GravityTension - Based on some of your statements and experience with autopsies, I am presuming you are/were a licensed medical professional? Please confirm or deny as it will validate your response to my next question - as I am uninterested in conjecture or hyperbole on this matter. What kind of time exposure could one expect to remain inverted prior to postural asphyxiation? Under normal circumstances, would you expect someone to experience syncope prior to asphyxiation? I understand there are a myriad of health variables that may contribute to some of these estimations, but would appreciate your general thoughts.
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Sorry slept on this for a bit. I am a physician and a pathologist, but not a fellowship trained forensic pathologist. I've assisted in a number of death investigations for positional asphyxia while in training at the office of the medical examiner.

Time to brain death depends on a number of factors, but in general, the brain will sustain some degree of permanent damage if deprived of oxygenated blood for more than a few minutes. In most cases meaningful recovery will not be possible even if a person if intubated and oxygenated after 10 minutes of anoxic injury.

The danger of positional asphyxia is that once a person is in a position that stops them from breathing, they almost always require assistance to break that position. In this case, if someone was in a climbing harness and had a considerable degree of pannus (belly fat) if they were suspended in a awkward position its possible that the harness would push the fat into the abdomen with sufficient pressure to overpower the diaphragm's ability to contract. If abdominal pressure exceeds the contractile ability of the diaphragm, then simply put you cannot breathe. This is analagous to having a large weight put on either your chest or belly; it will make it harder to breathe and if sustained, the diaphragm will tire and lose its ability to contract. If already winded and struggling, loss of consciousness could occur in under a minute.

I think everything that had been said here has been constructive. We need to keep these systems simple and be honest about who does and doesn't have the physical fitness to be climbing.

It's worth at least mentioning here that suspension trauma leading to a different type of positional asphyxia can occur while wearing a full body harness. Climbing in almost every form is inherently dangerous.

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raisins said:
anyone know if you should be contracting your muscles/core if stuck upside down? is it like a fighter pilot fighting g-force or would contracting actually act like a tourniquet and make it worse?
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It's probably more related to cardiovascular health than anything else. The cardiovascular system evolved to work with gravity in certain ways. When inverted blood can return to the heart through the veins from with legs and abdomen a lot easier, since gravity if pulling it back to the heart. This raises the pressure inside the heart and lungs, which makes the heart work harder to push the blood out. People with better cardiovascular health should be able to tolerate inversion better, but death can occur in anyone if sustained. There are cases of fit young cavers getting stuck while inverted.

There's actually a fair bit of research done on inversion asphyxia from roll over car crashes as well.

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