It’s that time of year again. The woods are full of hunters looking for that prize buck. But with all of those people carrying all of those guns, a few unfortunate incidents are bound to happen. The majority of the time, however, hunting-related injuries don’t involve firearms.
Take, for example, this story that follows a recent death in Louisiana . . .
Hunter Justin Lanclos said outside of a tree collapsing, the chances of injury while hunting are slim to none.
“The first reaction any time I see these types of incidents is that it’s gut wrenching and they’re 100 percent preventable, mine included, I’m a little over 6 years out of my fall, it’s gut wrenching, it’s heart breaking,” Lanclos said.
Lanclos said back in 2016 he fell 22 feet from a tree stand, resulting in multiple surgeries and even being wheel chair bound for three months. All because he was not properly connected to his tree stand.
“It was in July, we were setting up for the season so it was before the season, I was not connected, I was not attached to the tree as you should be, I was climbing out and lost my grip and I severely broke my leg, had some other damages to my ankles, my hips, my back,” Lanclos said. “Had my son not been there with me that day, I would’ve laid out there all day.”
Dr. Charles H. Cook is a trauma surgeon at the Ohio State University Medical Center and, I presume, a hunter. Reading between the lines of this 2010 story — Tree stands, not drunken gun-wielders, are the greatest threat to hunters — from the Los Angeles Times, it seems Dr. Cook got fed up with people suggesting that hunters are a bunch of drunken louts with a tendency to get tanked and shoot each other.
Cook and his colleagues collected data from the two Level 1 trauma centers in Columbus, Ohio for a decade. They ended up with the profiles of 130 patients who suffered hunting-related injuries.
And the survey said . . .
Sixty-five of the injuries were falls, and 60 of those were falls from tree stands, where hunters would stand or sit in wait for deer or other prey. Of those victims, 59% suffered fractures and 47% experienced lower-extremity fractures; 18% suffered injuries to their heads. Surgery was required for 81% of the fall-related injuries and 8.2% of the victims suffered permanent neurological damage. Of the other falls, four were from ground level and one was from an elevated outhouse.
Yes, an elevated outhouse.
Other injuries included 10 from crashes involving all-terrain vehicles, five arrow wounds, three injuries from falling branches — those trees again — three burns, two wounds from assaults, one self-inflicted stab wound, one bicycle crash and two wounds inflicted by prey.
So . . . what about, you know, the rifles? And the booze?
Alcohol was involved in only 2.3% of the injuries and drug abuse in 4.6% . . . Gunshot wounds accounted for 29% of the injuries, and 58% of those were accidentally self-inflicted.
Long story short: be careful out there…and use a safety harness, OK?