I had a home made tree stand, basically some 2x4's for a floor brace, and steps, and a piece of plywood to stand on, I made it into the stand just fine, but climbing down, the second from the top step gave away, I dropped about 8 feet, landed on my feet still holding my gun with one hand. I didnt get injured, but that was my first step to building safe deer stands.
Another time, I was gun hunting by myself on my hunting land. At this point I didnt have any structures, just woods. I had a climber tree stand, with the seat and rest on the top, and the foot stand on the bottom. I made it to the hieght I wanted, probably about 12-15 feet. I was securing the top half, and I hung my backpack on a hook on the tree, a couple does came walking through and I shot one of them. I thought to myself, well that was a quick hunt. I sat down for a little while to let the deer sit, and for me to rest. The bottom foot rest slid down to the bottom of the tree, while I was sitting in the top half. Obviously the rope that held the pieces together wasnt holding them together. So I hung my gun on the hook with my back pack, and tried to climb down, I ended up rolling and spraining my ankle. As I was laying on the ground next to the tree in major pain, I decided I needed to walk back to my truck about 200 yards a way. It was around 0 degrees out, and about 3pm, I had a couple hours of daylight left, but I was getting cold. SO I hopped back to the truck, to realize my keys are in the back pack, with my cell phone, and gun, 15 feet or so in the tree. So I had to hop back out to the tree and see if I could figure out how to climb up the tree to get my back pack, and gun down.
I tried hugging the tree and shimming up, with a sprained foot, that didnt work, doubt it would have anyhow. At this point it was starting to get dark, I am in the woods, no flashlight, no cell phone, no keys, no gun, my foot hurt like hell, and it was cold. I ended up finding a down limb, I lifted it up, and got it up to the hook, and unhooked my gun, but it fell to the ground, broke my scope, sad, but I still needed my back pack, I did finally get the back pack to drop, but it was dark, I was very cold, and I could barely put any weight on my foot. I left the gun, and the deer in the woods overnight, and drove to the hospital, they said it was just a sprain, but dam it hurt!
I went back to my inlaws parents cabin about 50 miles away and stayed there for the night. A friend drove the 200 miles to come up and help me get the deer, and my gun out of the woods. It was an adventure, but it could have easily been a lot worse. To this day my ankle is weak, and it lets me know when I step on something at an angle, or roll my ankle a little. It was my last hunt with a climber stand. I still hunt alone at times, but I keep my cell phone on me.
