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Saddle Fall

The extra rope on the limb is his lineman rope.
Looking at the knot, I think he retied it at some point. Compared to a muddy rope from an old harness I have with a double overhand knot,, his only had a single overhand. (I believe it's an overhand, correct me if I'm wrong) Especially seeing how it was missing the stopper knot at the other end, I believe he had fiddled around with it.

As another poster said, there were a handful of things that made me uncomfortable as well. John is a great person, but prideful at times, so the concerns I raised were dismissed a bit.

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d_rek said:
The loop on the tree tether pulled through the knot...

Are you saying the tree tether loop came undone?

There are a bunch of things that make me uncomfortable about that picture.
Click to expand...

Yes, and yes

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nockedup said:
The extra rope on the limb is his lineman rope.
Looking at the knot, I think he retied it at some point. Compared to a muddy rope from an old harness I have with a double overhand knot,, his only had a single overhand. (I believe it's an overhand, correct me if I'm wrong) Especially seeing how it was missing the stopper knot at the other end, I believe he had fiddled around with it.

As another poster said, there were a handful of things that made me uncomfortable as well. John is a great person, but prideful at times, so the concerns I raised were dismissed a bit.

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Click to expand...
Can't tell what knot it is, but an overhand on a bite has no place in this application. It should be a figure 8 on a bite with at least 2" of tail
 
bj139 said:
I hope he recovers OK. People have complained about all my attachment points but I just wave them off. It makes me feel better being backed up.
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Srt and tether? Dual setup?

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nockedup said:
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.
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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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Thanks for the additional information. Very scary and very lucky! Interestingly, I have noticed a lot of those tethers with the safety harnesses to be poorly tied, with very short tag ends. I don’t think they are intended to be under constant tension. I see a lot of them come with prusiks that are tied so short and with suspect knots, I wouldn’t trust my life with them. We all need to make sure we are using the proper equipment. Hope he recovers fully.
 
nockedup said:
The extra rope on the limb is his lineman rope.
Looking at the knot, I think he retied it at some point. Compared to a muddy rope from an old harness I have with a double overhand knot,, his only had a single overhand. (I believe it's an overhand, correct me if I'm wrong) Especially seeing how it was missing the stopper knot at the other end, I believe he had fiddled around with it.

As another poster said, there were a handful of things that made me uncomfortable as well. John is a great person, but prideful at times, so the concerns I raised were dismissed a bit.

Sent from my SM-G986U using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Isn’t that a stopper knot right above the lower cam On his bow? It appears that his tether loop has little to no tag end.
 
Wyatt_burp said:
Srt and tether? Dual setup?

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Click to expand...
I have the tether in case I want to move my SRT line higher up the tree. Since I have it anyway I always install it just in case I have overlooked something bad. A backup is not overkill, IMHO.
 
Appears this was not a tether from a muddy harness, but one of those long lifelines people buy cause they are cheaper than climbing rope. That explains why there's extra on the other side of the tree. So glad he is ok.
 
kenn1320 said:
Appears this was not a tether from a muddy harness, but one of those long lifelines people buy cause they are cheaper than climbing rope. That explains why there's extra on the other side of the tree. So glad he is ok.
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Its definitely an old muddy rope. The extra rope on the tree limb is his lineman rope. Which is also a repurposed rope from a treestand.

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raisins said:
My guess is that he was too hurt to fully tell them and the first responders just saw a mess of ropes around him and filled in the blanks the best they could.

I hope he is okay.
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Read my post again. Thats not what happened at all.

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muzzypower said:
Why not an overhand and why a figure 8?
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I'm not vtbow, but with a figure 8, if the knot starts slipping its gonna pull the loop tighter because you are hooked into the downhill end. Also, anything you trust your life with should have a stopper knot. The bottom of my 30' reppel line has a stopper, I've only hit it once, and boy was I glad I did.

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