November 13, 2012
By Bryan Brasher, CommercialAppeal.com
After a terrifying 14-foot fall from a tree stand and an
excruciating four-hour crawl back to the all-terrain vehicle he used
to enter the woods, Memphis resident Bob Thurman won't be hunting as
he'd planned on Saturday's opening day of the modern firearms deer
season in Tennessee.
Instead, he'll be in a hospital bed
with a broken left femur, urging others to always practice safety
precautions while hunting from elevated tree stands.
Thurman, 47, suffered the fall Friday afternoon as he tried to
attach a ladder stand to a tree on a friend's hunting property off
Jernigan Road in Fayette County. He was still hospitalized at The
Med awaiting transfer to a rehab facility Tuesday evening.
"I was out there trying to attach a 14-foot ladder stand to a tree
by myself, and I knew better than that," Thurman said. "When you're
hanging a ladder stand, you always need two people — one up in the
stand and one on the ground making sure it doesn't fall. I didn't
follow that rule, and it almost killed me."
Tree-stand falls
are the leading cause of hunting-related accidents in Tennessee.
There were eight tree-stand accidents during the 2011-12 hunting
season — an increase from five accidents the previous season —
including one fatality.
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