Hazards of climbing trees ..
General Topic
It amazes me that guys will climb 15 plus feet in a tree and not attach themselves with a SAFETY HARNESS! My hunting buddy died in 2012 due to the fact that he didn't think he needed a safety harness, well he was wrong, it would have saved his life. This guy is lucky he was able to contact help, otherwise it would have been a long and painful way to go. It's funny how I share my story of my buddy with other hunters and they all shrug it off and say it won't happen to me, and I say wow, that's what my buddy always use to say. I guess Forests mom was right, Stupid is what Stupid does.
My home state and it happens all the time here. Way more than it should given the risk is avoidable. I never leave the ground without a tether of one form or another, no reason for it.
That would be embarrassing. Glad he's okay.
LB, people ignore the advice all the time. My neighbor visited me in rehab during my recovery. He saw how badly I was hurt. He knows what I went through. 4-5 months later he saw me hobbling around my yard with a walker or a cane.
We recently spoke about our recent and upcoming hunting trips. He has an old Gunslinger climber. I asked if he was using a life line. He said no, you can't fall out of those stands, and they cannot fail because they are all metal. He knows that my fall resulted from equipment failure. I even offered to gift him a life line and handed him one from my truck. I keep several of them for that very purpose. He declined. I can't but wonder why.
If you look at other pictures the guy is about 25` in the air. The best part is it took 30 taxpayer funded emergency techs 2 hours to do what another hunter could do in 5 minutes. Comical.
very lucky he's not dead.. how hard is it to bring your safety line up with you while climbing?
one of my friends just fell 20 ft last week. He's lucky to be alive and moving. He shattered his c5 but so far he walking around after some serious hardware was added to his spine. He was not attached to a safety line and the ratchest strap on his hang-on failed just as he was about to clip into the carabineer.
It's simply foolish and irresponsible to not use a harness and safety line from the ground up.
If you dont want to use them use for your family.
New straps for your hang ons every season
most dangerous hunt in north American is a deer hunt from an elevated position. every ascent is cheating death or paralysis
Gravity always wins. I was very lucky baxkbin the hungry years.
Guy was lucky.
It ain't the fall that gets ya....it's the sudden stop at the bottom.
I'm assuming he was able to call for help. Many times we are in areas that do not have a cell signal and might not see a hunter close by. Lucky this was a morning hunt and able to call help otherwise he would be an icicle by morning.
For me, ground blinds. Hell, I can hurt myself at ground level, ain't climbing any tree.
How'bout the second story...bottom of page? 70yr old hung upside down for two days, the thoughts going through that mind hour after hour.
The most dangerous time is when climbing into or out of the stand. Knowing that statistic most guys don't even clip into a harness until they area in the stand, Wha???
I haven't ever fallen all the way to the ground, but rode a old trapdoor style stand down 3/4 of a tree 30+ years ago. For more than 20 years now have used rock climbing harness, SOP, similar harness with redundant lineman's ropes. Get up the tree, into and out of the stand back to the ground once I am clipped in. Shot a lot of deer too, just absolutely no reason not to use safety harness, none at all. Favorite climbing aid are leg irons. Use tree steps, sticks, blocks, etc. when I have to but you just can't beat the Buckingham leg-iron climbers.
Had an old timer up here get hung upside down in his home made rope harness. Real harness was at the btm of the tree. Hung for 3 days I believe. Had the trauma crew and all when they got him down. He died a cpl weeks later.
