Treestand hunters gotta read this.

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I'm actually borrowing this from another forum, but man you gotta understand the issues. I know this was a gun hunter, but that doesn't really matter here.


This was posted on another forum and I thought it was so relevant that I bring it here.

THE BEST BEAR HUNTING STORY OF 2006

The bait had been hit 14 days in a row and the shirt placed over the bait the night before was successful at keeping the big bear away at night. The shirt was removed and a pail of dog food and molasses was placed beside the bait for fresh scent long with vanilla extract sprayed all over. SET!!
With the 270WSM unloaded and a new found sense of success in mind, up the tree I went. The stand was a hardwood skid with eye bolts that the straps were attached to which went around the tree. I stood on the skid, loaded the gun and began to adjust the chair for a 4 hour sit before dusk, and then it happened!!! Never did I expect that my adventure was about to begin with such urgency and a life and death struggle, not for the bear but for me.
CRACK, I was looking at the sky and the tops of the trees with my arms flailing and I am sure I was yelling. AHHHH… THUD. Can I move? Yes but the pain. I have tunnel vision….I’m blacking out and I can’t breath!! Oh God NO..pain…I can’t breathe. When will they find me here and in what shape?? I can’t breath and can hardly move. 1/16 breaths now but with every 16th breathe an agonizing grown follows….I’m blacking out again…..I have to get outa here and get help…NOW!! I have to!! With everything I had left and I mean everything I unloaded the gun and left it there along with everything else except the ammunition. I staggered back to the bike 200yds away and drove it 3km back to the in-laws house just staying conscious enough to get enough oxygen into my lungs and make it back to their house (alive)! At times I could not get a breath when I needed to because of the pain and having to will the air into my lungs. But… I made it.
My brother-in-law called the ambulance as I was going into shock with puddles of sweat all around me. The trip to the hospital took half an hour but it seemed longer. After being emitted and 6 injections of morphine and a shot of something real good, the pain was down to where I could get ¼ breaths of oxygen. I could not lay flat and had to sit up, which was the only way for me to get oxygen into my lung. Yes lung…. One of my lungs had collapsed and two of my vertebra were compressed (I did an accordion job on my back). VERY VERY PAINFUL! For one day I was on 10mg shot of morphine every 2-4 hours and a slow release tablet of morphine. Along with that was oxycoton, muscle relaxers, gravol to keep it all down and a host of other strong medication.
Five days later a person who was in good shape and only required the occasional Advil has a pharmacy of pain killers, puffers and anti-inflammatory medication on the counter. It is a miracle I had no major broken bones (I still question the CT scan) and with one minor operation to inset a chest tube to repair my collapsed lung….I am way past being lucky.
This is not meant to be a pity for me at all, it is the only way I know to get your attention and try to get other to see how fast it can happen. It may be a homemade stand or a $500.00 deluxe model it doesn’t matter… if you are going to fall it will happen, you will hit the ground, and you have really no choice how you land or how fast you descend. We are all 10 foot tall and bullet proof sitting in our tree stand hunting for the next best story to tell until it happens to you and all you have left is a feeling of excruciating pain and dependency on everyone around you as though you were a child again. So many questions run though your mind, and the one that appears most unsettling is: WILL I MAKE IT OR NOT. It was luck or Gods hand that I did!
4 weeks off work minimum, no shouting or hunting and I almost made my wife a widow before we were even married. Is a harness worth it? You can bet your life on it!


Later, he posted this:

Just read the official report from the doc,,, Off for 6 weeks with a fractured rib, compression fracture to vertebrae, internal rib bruising and suffered a collapsed lung. Now we are pushing into moose hunting season. My fiance is stressed out. I'm sorry dear !
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Email: safetreehunt @ yahoo.com

One last bit of advice: Never fall out of a tree!!

Find out more on how to Hunt Safe and download your free instructions on the climber systems here: www.geocities.com/safe...index.html

I always use my saftey harness while climbing with my tree stand, sitting in it and also when coming back down ......... and so does everyone I hunt with.

You would not believe the number of hunters killed in the SE every year, falling out of a tree. Last year one of my traveling budies, an ENT from Mississippi, had a partner in his group of MDs, stick a foot out, to take a shot, while standing on a platform tree stand. He fell 14 feet onto his head, broke his neck... DOA.

Another buddy was struck by lightning in a stand, he came to, in bad shape, laying on the ground. Lightning blew him out of the stand.

Fasten up. Even a chest strap might keep you alive.
Ed

I did treestand hunting last season (my first deer season :D) and I gave up on it after the 2nd weekend out.

I didnt much like it. Perfer staying near the ground. Plus its easyer to see things on the ground as well as staying hidden for me anyways. If humans were ment to climb and be in tree's we'd still have tails according to "evolutionists"

Dimitri

Hi

Any treestand hunter that isn't using his safety equipment doesn't understand...

THE GRAVITY of the situation.

(Not a climber, myself, thanks: Too high to jump, to low to rappel.)