Those of you that have read my posts in reply to questions about safety harnesses .... here I go again.

I just received a call from the wife of one of my best friends. This guy is like a brother to me. Not good news. John fell from his climbing stand Monday afternoon while setting it up for a future hunt. He had found a good area and was de-limbing thetree as he went up. He was sawing off the last and a rather largelimb so that he could have a clear shooting lane. The limb snapped loose before he was expecting it to. The butt rotated towards his face andslapped him in the forehead. Thisknocked him backwards enough that he lost his balance. Initially, he was able to prevent tumbling out by jammiung his legs into the frame of the upper section of the stand.However this came at the at the cost of a double compound, multiplefracture to both bones in his lower left leg and torn ligaments in his righ knee.Dangling upside down, though strong as a bull (I mean this guy is a major gym rat, health nut) hewasunable to pull himself upright. He remained there until he passed out cold. He is guessing that it was about then thathefell to the ground. He was about 15' up at the time of the accident. He regained conciousness well after dark:30. Fortunately, and I attribute this to his great conditioning and his mental toughness,hewas able to crawl to his ATV some 150 yards away, drag himself up on it, drive to an area where he had service ... and call for help. I am so thankful that his injuries are not anymore severe than they are.While being struck in the face might not have been avoidable in this case, the fall was.From that height, I could easily be postingabout a fatality.

You guessed it .... he was not wearing a safety harness. I'm telling you guys, especially you skeptics, these harnesses are worth their weight in gold. In my book, there is no acceptable reason not to wear one.