I am sorry to see this. Prayers for recovery. I feel less redundant for using a battle belt with my saddle and lineman loops attached to a second short bridge and second tether.Hunter airlifted after tree stand fall (Jennings County)
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Just saw this pop up on my Facebook. Happened here in Indiana. "An initial investigation revealed that ropes securing the saddle style tree stand to the tree became loose causing Connor to fall to the ground."
Nah. This happened in Indiana and it's been pretty warm. Some light frost a few mornings that melted pretty quickly.
Thabks for the info. So what specifically caused the issue?I heard this made the local news, but didn't realize it would make its way here too.
I was hunting in the tree next to John when the accident happened. I'll first say that he is okay and is very fortunate to have only suffered compression fractures in his lumbar spine. He was released from the hospital this afternoon and is on his way back home.
The accident occurred when the loop on his tether pulled thru the knot.
We had been in the tree about 2.5 hours when he fell. Johns platform as measured by the CO was 13.5 ft off the ground. He fell straight onto his back to a soft muddy forest floor, missing trees by just inches.
This was an unfortunate case of user error and unchecked/out of spec equipment. He was using a rope from a muddy safety harness as his tether rope, and the tether/carabiner/ascender setup overall was not something I'd have my life depend on.
If you zoom in to the photo (which may be hard as the quality will probably suck, posting from tapatalk) you can see a few things wrong...
1. there is no stopper knot on his tether rope. Shortly after taking this photo I realized it and tied one in for him.
2. There is no tag end of rope beyond the knot in the tether loop. Im thinking it essentially was slipping just a tiny bit over the course of the hunt and it finally just pulled thru.
3. Maybe not a problem, but the strap holding his backpack is overlapping the tether rope. That made me uncomfortable with the tether not above that strap, or at least not overlapped by the strap.
Considering the situation, things could not have turned out better. Were grateful that John is going to make a full recovery and its a sobering reminder of the importance to use the proper gear, and don't pinch pennies when your life is literally on the line.
The response time from the medics and the CO was nothing short of amazing. The EMTs were on the scene within 15 minutes of the 911 call, and John was on the helicopter less than 45 minutes after the fall. Thank you to the Westport and North Vernon fire departments, ICO Michael Ostendorf and the guys in the whirly bird for getting there so quickly. They all did a hell of a job to stabilize John and get him the medical attention he needed.
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What do you mean tether pulled thru the knot?I heard this made the local news, but didn't realize it would make its way here too.
I was hunting in the tree next to John when the accident happened. I'll first say that he is okay and is very fortunate to have only suffered compression fractures in his lumbar spine. He was released from the hospital this afternoon and is on his way back home.
The accident occurred when the loop on his tether pulled thru the knot.
We had been in the tree about 2.5 hours when he fell. Johns platform as measured by the CO was 13.5 ft off the ground. He fell straight onto his back to a soft muddy forest floor, missing trees by just inches.
This was an unfortunate case of user error and unchecked/out of spec equipment. He was using a rope from a muddy safety harness as his tether rope, and the tether/carabiner/ascender setup overall was not something I'd have my life depend on.
If you zoom in to the photo (which may be hard as the quality will probably suck, posting from tapatalk) you can see a few things wrong...
1. there is no stopper knot on his tether rope. Shortly after taking this photo I realized it and tied one in for him.
2. There is no tag end of rope beyond the knot in the tether loop. Im thinking it essentially was slipping just a tiny bit over the course of the hunt and it finally just pulled thru.
3. Maybe not a problem, but the strap holding his backpack is overlapping the tether rope. That made me uncomfortable with the tether not above that strap, or at least not overlapped by the strap.
Considering the situation, things could not have turned out better. Were grateful that John is going to make a full recovery and its a sobering reminder of the importance to use the proper gear, and don't pinch pennies when your life is literally on the line.
The response time from the medics and the CO was nothing short of amazing. The EMTs were on the scene within 15 minutes of the 911 call, and John was on the helicopter less than 45 minutes after the fall. Thank you to the Westport and North Vernon fire departments, ICO Michael Ostendorf and the guys in the whirly bird for getting there so quickly. They all did a hell of a job to stabilize John and get him the medical attention he needed.
Sent from my SM-G986U using Tapatalk
