Back in the early days of climbing treestands I didn't exactly fall, but I made a couple very quick desents when my old Baker Climber lost it's bite. That always left you with no skin on your arms and knees and chin and nose. That was before some bright guy came up with a safety belt, climbing aid or any of that stuff.

Not to many years ago I bought a brand new model of climber that had composite arms. It was made by Loggy. I tried it a couple times in the yard and then headed for the Adirondacks. I humped back in about 3/4 mile, put it on the tree, put on my safety belt and started up. I always take a pretty big bite with a climber. I pushed the handclimber up to my arm pits and gave a heave to pull up the platform. I was about 12 feet up at the time. The composite arms on the hand climber broke dumping me over backwards on to the platform which broke, leaving me dangling from a safety belt upside down. I righted myself, chimmied down and sat on the gound. Within 30 minutes a nice little buck came along and I stuck him at about 7 yards.

I had bought the stand at a show before it was released in the stores. It never made it to the stores. They dropped it.