When you start taking safety for granted.
I was out hunting this weekend in the Crockett National Forest in east Texas. I was using a climbing tree stand that I've been using for years. I've used it hundreds of times and made many "meat in the freezer" shots from it. After a Sunday morning with no deer sighted, I was going to climb down, and move to a different location for the afternoon hunt. I stood up and detached my safety harness from the tree. The tree was so big around, my safety strap couldn't move freely up and down the tree while connected. I had also forgotten a line to attach to my rifle to lift it up and down from the stand. So I had just slipped the rifle into the arm rest across the seat, and carried it up and down the tree that way.
As I stood up and turned around to slip my feet into the cuffs on the lower part of the stand, that part of the stand dropped out from under my feet and I was suddenly hanging 20 feet off the ground in the middle of nowhere. The knot on the line that connected the top and bottom pieces of the stand had come loose and didn't stop the bottom from dropping almost all the way to the ground.
I knew that I wasn't going to be able to pull myself back up to the seat, because I could feel the foam covering on the rail I was hanging on to, start to twist in my hand. As I looked down to the ground, I realized, that if I dropped down directly below me I would land on the lower portion of the stand and break one or both of my legs. I remember that I said out loud "this ain't good", and pushed off from the tree as my hands slipped off the upper stand.
The only part of the fall that I remember was that it seemed like I was looking at a video of someone who had dropped a camera. As I lay on the ground, I remember waiting for the pain to start. It didn't. All I heard was the woodpeckers on some other trees. I turned my head back and forth slowly and noticed that I had landed about four feet from the lower stand. I slowly moved my feet and then raised my legs to check my knees and hips. I didn't feel any pain untill I tried to stand. I had an intense, sharp pain in my left thigh. I found a fallen branch strong enough to take my weight and was able to stand using it. I was able to slowly put weight on my left leg, and slowly able to move around.
I thought about going directly back to my truck, but if I didn't do anything about the part of the stand still in the tree, with attached rifle, I didn't know if I'd be able to get back and recover them later. I found another long branch and was able to reach up and flip off the safety, then I hooked the trigger and the rifle fired. The recoil knocked it off the stand and I picked it up and set it aside.
I was then able to knock down the remaining part of the stand. I disassembled the stand and put them on the pack rack I use to carry them.The pain in my leg had subsided to the point that I could walk back to my truck. I packed everything up and walked about a half mile to my truck.
I stopped by the hospital in Livingston Tx to get x-rays and the Doc gave me a thumbs up, except for a torn muscle in my thigh. Quite honestly, I was surprised that is all that happened.
The lesson was clear. NEVER,EVER, take safety for granted.
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