about 5 years ago, i was hunting an old permanent stand, when i began to crawl out, the top step broke and i fell straight down about 15 feet, terrible feeling....luckily, i only had a bruised rear end

I had the ladder sections of my ladder stand come apart and fall when i was in the stand. I was up there with just the seat portion of my stand ratcheted to the tree. The ground became soggy after a few hard rains and it sagged enough to create seperation between the top ladder part and the seat. Talk about helpless.

I don't believe I'm an idiot!! I don't use a harnes. Maybe I should maybe I shouldn't. It's one more thing to take with me. It sorta restricts my movement. If I want to shed some clothing I have to take it all off and back on again. Pain in the butt to me so I don't use one. I hunt from ladder stands mostly and I can't fathom how you fall out of them.

Your movement will be much more restricted when you're a para/quadrapelegic.

I used to use just a safety belt, now it's a safety harness. I'd feel naked and vulnerable up a tree without it. I've never needed to rely on it, but some of my hunting friends have. Using it for a while will get you used to how to make it most effective without restricting you too much.

I have never fallen out of or while using a treestand. However, while hunting, no bow in hand, I did fall out of a tree I was climbing into. That was several years ago....when I was not as intelligent as I am now...

Hey y'all,
I Have had one close call in 14 years of hunting. When I was 15 I cut my hand to the bone (across the palm) with a Bear Razorhead and passed out. When I came to, I was hanging upsidedown by my leg about 25 feet off the ground. I guess God looks out for fools because the only thing that kept me from falling to the ground was the strap (that held the top piece to the bottom piece) that my leg got tangled in. Thankfully I was able to haul myself back up.
After that I always used a harness and wouldn't climb without it.

It's also one more thing to bring out with you along with hopefully a body still alive and in good condition. My SOP harness does not restrict my movement, in fact it gives me the confidence to get into some positions for a shot that I might not otherwise be able to do. If you put the harness on over your bottom layer of clothing and layer over it the strap can feed out the collar and you can remove layers as you need to. There are really no legitimate excuses for not using a safety harness. That is unless you just naturally have suicidal tendencies. Most of the near mishaps I have hade were in ladder stands. Slick rungs and rubber sole boots can cause problems especially when wet or when cold and cramped up from siting for hours.

wear your harness from the ground till down!!!!!

Many of you may not remember the old Baker tree stands...I sure do . I took a few elevator rides with those things and thankfully was never hurt. I also took some spills from permanent stands when I was younger and was lucky also. Safety harnesses were not even available for sale when this all happened. Guy I work with fell 20' out of a treestand in a really rugged area had to be airlifted to the hospital and is lucky to be walking...He has enough steel rods in his back and lost feeling in parts of his leg. I guarantee that he won't ever make that mistake again. I would not under any condition ever hunt without a safety harness.

i know you should strap yourself in, but what if the tree your in starts to fall and your straped into to it. i guess your going down with, what im saying is maybe i whould like to have a chance to jump out of the stand if its going down. never heard of that happening but i see alot of big healthy trees lying on the ground. wearing the harness is the way to go, but thinking about the tree falling is in the back of my mind...

You're probably right!! And let me state to anyone getting into hunting that I DO NOT promote not using a safety harness. I think everyone should use it and get used to it from day 1. My problem is I never have been able to. I'm going to try during the offseason when I practice. I have a wife and 3 kids to think about. What's the best/most comfortable one to use? I've tried the Gorilla harness I think it was called. I just can't for the life of me get used to the thing.

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.