I post this every time a fall topic comes up, just a heads up on how quickly things can go bad if you are careless for a few seconds.
The fall
30 years ago while putting up a lock-on. I was putting the stand in a cedar tree with a lot of limbs so I was unhooking my harness and passing the belt around the tree and rehooking as I passed a limb on my way up.
I was in a hurry, didn't look at my hook up, and leaned back against the climbing belt after I heard the safety catch snap. I leaned back about 12 feet up and my safety hook pulled loose, I think I pulled my shirttail in with hook and kept the safety snap open.
Out of the tree I went, backwards. I saw the limbs going by as I fell and thought "this is going to hurt". I rolled backwards in flight and hit on my shoulders and the back of my head, my back popped like a shotgun going off.
I knew it was going to hurt but wasn't prepared for the degree of pain I felt. It was so bad I passed out on the ground, then things got hazy, I would wake up looking at the sky, try to move, pass out again and come to with my face buried in the dirt. I also knew my wrist was broken.
I was finally able to get up to a standing fetal position. For some addled reason I thought I needed to take the lock on that was on the ground with me so I got back down on the ground, rolled into the straps and tried to walk out of the valley. No one knew where I was at, I was 45 miles from home and knew it was up to me to and me alone to get out.
I could only take 6" shuffling baby steps, my back felt like a bomb had exploded in it, then I started dry heaving. I knew I was going into shock, with each spasm from the dry heaving my pain doubled.
I finally got to my Ranger pick-up, got inside, belted myself in and pumped up the pneumatic lumbar support for my back. At this point I realized I hadn't locked my hubs in for 4 wheel drive and it was a rough road going out. I knew I couldn't out and in again so I floored the gas and hopped for the best.
I made it out to the locked gate, staggered out of my truck unlocked the gate, got back in and headed home driving with one hand. The pain was incredible.
I got home, honked the horn to get my wife's attention and told her I was in really bad shape and needed to get to the hospital.
At the hospital I had all the tests and was sent to an orthopedic surgeon. He set my wrist, looked at my xrays for about 2 seconds, said my back was OK and sent me home.
I was in bed and crawling to the bathroom for days, the pain was still out the roof. For the next year there was no way I could sit, stand or lay down for any length of time before the pain made me shift positions, then it got better and I recovered.
About 20 years later my back started bothering me again and I went to a chiropractor. He looked at my xrays and said "when did you break your back"? There it was, a huge jagged break in my vertebrae that was actually offset to the side.
That dang Dr I saw sent me home with a badly broken back, I haven't trusted doctors since.
I rode a Baker suicide stand down twice. The worst time I stepped too close to the tree and the seat climber and bottom part took off down the tree. The both parts fell but the climber caught about 10 feet down. The platform was still going and I was stripped through the climber. When the platform stopped I was at the base of the tree with my feet still in the straps. I was pitched backward violently with my head striking the ground. If the platform had stopped a foot higher the backward motion would have snapped my back like a twig because my head couldn't have touched the ground.
I lay there on the ground with my arms completely paralyzed from going through the seat climber wondering what I was going to do next. As I lay on the ground I could feel a little tingling in my fingertips after about a half hour, the feeling gradually came back in my arms and I went home.
My arms were as black as coal on the inside from my armpit to my wrists.
I went home, got out my 15# sledge, beat that stand into pieces and threw it is a dumpster. I wanted to make sure no one could retrieve it from the dumpster and get killed or injured using it.
Topic: Tree stand safety and a bowhunter down (Read 5808 times)
