Never thought it would be me!

[steveshuntn1]

Wow - thanks for the reminder.

(ps - when I saw the title I thought this was going to be another "my wife left me" thread)

Quite the opposite! After 30 years of marriage this woman has been my lifesaver. Waited on me hand and foot, and done things no wife should have to deal with. I’m a lucky man in more ways than one!

 

[steveshuntn1]

I only use chain and chain binders anymore. Straps are too susceptable to UV rays and squirrels. Straps get relegated to securing loads in the truck.

I’ll never use a web strap on a stand again that is left in the woods. I just bought a saddle and that may be my new “deer stand” from now on. If I ever hunt off the ground again that is. I gave my son in law four lone wolf stands yesterday…he’s 28 and still feeling bulletproof.

 

[woods89]

That's very surprising that they made you walk out of there.

I've used a a saddle for 7 years or so now, and I really like the fact that it makes it easy to be attached to the tree the whole time. I've done some dumb stuff over the years with treestands, but I've been lucky. I stay attached pretty much 100% of the time I'm off the ground now.

Hope you heal up quickly!

 

[kansasdad]

Wow!

Cavalier EMT behavior not appreciated here in Wichita. Thankfully you seem to have dodged the worst outcomes possible from this series of bad decisions and failed support systems.

Wishing you complete recovery

 

[steveshuntn1]

Wow!

Cavalier EMT behavior not appreciated here in Wichita. Thankfully you seem to have dodged the worst outcomes possible from this series of bad decisions and failed support systems.

Wishing you complete recovery

Thanks I had made my peace with it until the EMT in charge started telling everyone in are small town I insisted on walking out, and didn’t give them a choice….now it’s pissin me off!

 

[Scott85]

Thanks I had made my peace with it until the EMT in charge started telling everyone in are small town I insisted on walking out, and didn’t give them a choice….now it’s pissin me off!

Even if you did they should’ve made you be carried out.

 

[steveshuntn1]

Im glad you are recovering. Last sunday i did a dumbass move also. Ive been using a safety harness in the stand for years until last sunday. I went out for the first sit for the season and an hour and a half in I realized that I didnt even have my harness with me. Thankfully nothing dramatic happened. Hopefully you have a full recovery soon.

I did the same thing a couple times last year. Deer are definitely not worth the risk…stay safe.

 

[Northwoods]

That sucks! Thanks for sharing this story. I’ve always hated putting ladder stands up. I think I’m done with them. I hope your recovery goes well.

 

[steveshuntn1]

That sucks! Thanks for sharing this story. I’ve always hated putting ladder stands up. I think I’m done with them.

I know I am!!!! I bought a turkey chair to set on the ground!

 

[TOGIE]

man, our S&R teams carry people on stretchers above 10,000 feet for several miles to a heli zone every week it seems. i thought that was just a part of the job of saving people. i'm just as stunned as everyone else they walked you out.

i remember larimer county S&R stretchering out a boy scout leader with a broken ankle nearly six miles once, a broken ankle!

 

[steveshuntn1]

man, our S&R teams carry people on stretchers above 10,000 feet for several miles to a heli zone every week it seems. i thought that was just a part of the job of saving people. i'm just as stunned as everyone else they walked you out.

i remember larimer county S&R stretchering out a boy scout leader with a broken ankle nearly six miles once, a broken ankle!

Your guys are definitely tougher than ours then….the three I had gave every excuse they could not to put me on that bad old backboard!

 

[steveshuntn1]

Sitting here in the woods on a slow morning and decided to put an update on my accident.
It’s been a little more than two months and I’m healing up faster than expected. Still sore muscles but nothing that keeps me from being active with some minor limitations. I can pick up my granddaughter again…I missed doing that. My doctor said the MRI I had done last Monday looked great that the hardware was in place and hadn’t moved. The broken vertebraes are almost completely healed and by Christmas he thinks they will be. He gave me the go ahead to return to work on January 2nd. I’m actually looking forward to it. I don’t like sitting around and not being useful.
The doc told me it would be fine to start deer hunting again back around the first of November and rifle season opener was the weekend before thanksgiving. He’s a deer hunter too and understands… he said he would want to be in the woods as soon as he could himself if he was in my situation. Said I could shoot my .308, but no tree stands and no dragging deer. That’s the hardest part about it for me, having to watch someone else get a deer out for me and I can’t help. I have stuck with the 300 blackout though, and I’ve killed three…a small doe and a couple young bucks. I’m not passing up anything this season. Wife’s orders! She wants all the deer meat we can get, and she’s trophy hunting this year. She spotted a stud the first weekend and couldn’t get a shot.
It was a tough thing to deal with but only way to live is to look forward. I definitely learned a lesson about tree stand safety the hard way though.
So thanks for all the good thoughts and well wishes. I hope everyone has had a great hunting season so far!

 

[Southern Elk]

Glad to hear you're doing better.

 

[Hunting Wife]

Glad to hear you are back out there and well on the road to recovery!

 

[Hunter4Life78]

Prayed for you too sir. Keep smoking them gotta keep momma happy.

 

[Benfromalbuquerque]

As a former sack of dead weight human deep in the woods myself, I can tell you this: it could have gone differently. I know from my experience that you can get your entire patient file from the hospital and that’ll have first response notes. No telling why in the hell they couldn’t use lifeflight in your situation.

 

[CorkyM]

I’ve mentioned this on other threads but just need to say it again to be sure everyone who I can get to reads it.

On September 26th my, wife, daughter, and I decided to go give our hunting spots and tree stands a once over before the coming deer season. I had been so focused on the 2nd season rifle Colorado elk hunt that everything else had taken a back seat.
So around 12:30 that Sunday we took the thirty minute ride up to the public land we hunt. We got to our first spot which was about 1/2 mile down to a couple of spring fed water holes where I had a 20 ft ladder stand.
I put out a camera and my wife was doing some scouting in the area. A split second decision made me think moving the stand around the tree a little would not only give me more cover but would also a better shot at the main trail. I climbed the stand and popped the top buckle loose. The next steps happed fast. I remember grabbing a limb that broke, I heard another strap break, I remember getting to far away from the tree to reach any other limbs and I remember yelling at my daughter to run. The next thing I know I hit the ground hard….very, very hard!
View attachment 243270
I remember rolling around on the ground and my wife asking what hurt. I don’t know what I said to her. I do remember telling them to give me a minute and I’d walk it off. My wife told me not to move and told my daughter to be sure I didn’t. They tried to decide who was gonna run up the hill to get a signal to call 911 and the next thing I know I was alone for a while. Finally I heard someone callling and my son in law found me. The wife had called 911 and my son in law and my daughter who is an RN. They led the paramedics to me it was three men. The paramedic in charge I think asked me a bunch of questions and checked vitals and told me to lay as still as possible and not move my neck. He checked movement to be sure I wasn’t paralyzed and I wasn’t. Then things got strange. He told me the backboard would most likely cause me more long term damage since I was so far in the woods. He said they were going to stand me up and help me walk out. My daughter was the first to say you can’t move a patient with a possible spinal
injury then the wife he ignored them like they weren’t there…the paramedic told me it would be extremely painful to lay me flat on that board and be carried out. I ask since I wasn’t in intense pain lying on my side couldn’t he strap me to the board that way and he said no It would cause spinal damage. So he started an Iv and gave me some pain meds. He rolled me over as I screamed in pain and two guys tried to pull me to my feet I couldn’t stand and went to the ground. He told me I had to tough this one out for them and this time the other guy joined in and the snatched me to my feet. I held firm. One guy gave me a stick he found to use as a walking stick and I ask my son in law to give me my extendable limb cutter. At this point if I wanted out it didn’t seem I had any other choice in the matter so determination to get it done set in.
I walked the 1/2 mile out of those woods while everyone followed and my son in law cleared a path. I crossed dead falls, small ditches, and about an hour later reached the road. One of the paramedics held a belt loop to keep me from falling when the pain hit and I would start to fall.
I got to the hospital about 45 minutes later and as we pulled up to the er bay they unwrapped a c collar and put it on…one of them said the docs get pissed if a patient doesn’t have it on.
So maybe 10 minutes of seeing nurses and docs getting IV ‘s started and vitals I was in a ct machine.
Before I could get settled back in the er room the doc came in and told me my back bone was in pieces. He had already started the process of getting me airlifted to a trauma center because they didn’t have surgeons that could handle the injuries. A helicopter arrived to airlift me to Jackson Ms.and they locked me down to that bed so I couldn’t even twitch. The Doctor said I had several chunks of bone pressing into my spinal cord and was worried about puncturing it.
Thirty minutes later I was in the air doped out of my mind. I was in surgery after about 3 hours after landing that took around 5 hours I have 2 titanium rods and 10 screws with a large portion of my lower spine fused together, but 12 days later I’m recovering now. I’m lucky….beyond lucky.
The only thing so far is a nerve damage in my left leg. It’s numb to the touch from my hip to my in knee. The doctors think it’s permanent and that I’ll get used to it eventually.
I told this story not for sympathy or anything like that. I’m 48 years old and have been moving stands and climbing trees for hunting for 40 years. I considered myself a safe guy when it came to this, but in a matter of 30 seconds I left all that to the side and almost killed or paralyzed myself just to move a stand a foot or more.
Guys be safe….hunting is a wonderful sport, but it can be dangerous and no matter how much experience you have tragedy can hit you too, and hard!
.

I am very, very sorry to hear that you had this accident. I have been lucky, doing this for 64 years, the most I ever fell out of a tree was about the last six feet down and winded up with a bruise on my hip. I wish you a good recovery.

 

[BirdManMike]

Wow. Glad you survived. I hope you have a speedy recovery.

 

[David58]

Wow. Any EMTs on here? I don't like to try to tell professionals their business but it sure seems weird they wouldn't try to carry you out. Is that standard procedure for difficult terrain?

My wilderness first aid class last year discussed this - they find more damage is done by using the backboard with all the jouncing and bouncing than walking someone out.

David
NM

 

[steveshuntn1]

My wilderness first aid class last year discussed this - they find more damage is done by using the backboard with all the jouncing and bouncing than walking someone out.

David
NM

That may be so in some cases, but according to my neurosurgeon they had no idea what was damaged or broken in my back and I should have been immobilized. I actually had the L2 vertebrae shattered and pressing into my spinal cord. The wrong step or fall walking out could’ve caused serious damage.
I’m just glad I made it without any more nerve damage than I currently have.