As is embrassing as this is. 10 years ago I was guiding a 9 yr old on his first whitetail hunt with a bow. I had a ladder stand setup at about 20' high. I followed him up the ladder and fastened him into a safty harness,while telling him not to get out until I picked him back up. On my way back down the ladder my foot slipped and I fell backwards off the ladder. My right leg slipped through the runs of the ladder and caught the fall. I broke my leg pretty bad,buut not wanting to upset the youngman I climbed back up and went down. My oldest son was with me as we were back some 2 miles from the road. He made a fuss,buut I told him to keep quite until we were out of ears range. My leg was now bleeding pretty bad and my camo pants were stuck inside the broken bone. We pulled it out, wrapped a belt around the front of the shin over the bone and I continued into the forest another half mile ,dropping off my son at his stand. About 300 yards after dropping my son off I tripped and fell on some poison ivy vines with a vine catching an arrow and pulling it from the quiver. I fell on that arrow with the broadhead going completely through my side, in the front and out the backside. I calmly unscrewed the tip and pulled the arrow out of me. Now I had a broken right leg and a hole through my side from the arrow and was bleeding, but not as bad as you would have though considering it all. As stupid as I was I refused to go back and pick anybody out of a stand. Went to my stand and waited until dusk. I shot a large Doe that night, walked back out over 2 miles, picked everybody up on the way out. Got to the truck, drove back,picked up my deer and drove back to the lodge. When we got back to the lodge I climbed out of the truck,took maybe 2 full steps and colapsed. They took me into the closet hospital some 15 miles away. I had broken my leg just below the Tibia through both bones, pierced my intestines and lost a lot of blood. ER Doctor said I was lucky to be breathing after the ordeal. I had a bowle resection and casted leg,ended up with Gang-green and had to be opened back up twice. Was in and out of the hospital 4 times over a 2 month period of time. I now have a nice scare on my leg and a giant scare on my side. Embrassing as it is, I stress the fact,you can never be too safe or careful while in the field. And no matter what, use a saffty harness always in and out of a treestand.

nothing that long, but Iput a hook thru the spot between the fore finger and thumb, had to push it through and cut off barb to pull it out, man that hurt, I drank a lot of beer that day, didn't cathc much fish after that though...

my son's friend fell in the water in alaska while salmon fishing and i had to go after him. hypothermia almost set in on both of us. other than fish hooks or spending an unexpected night on a mountain, i've been lucky.

Rick you broke a leg and fell on an arrow that went through your abdomen, then you shot a doe picked the younger hunters up and THEN you went to the hospital. Well several thoughts about your decision making come to mind, but you are VERY determined buddy. Hope 2011 runs smoother. Cheers.

always have known hunters and fishermen to exaggerate things a little,
not suggesting anything

not my story, but while my grandpa and grandma were visiting us once while we lived in Fiji, we took him out fishing (our families a fishing family) It was a good day, everything going perfect, and when everything goes perfect, then something has to go wrong.
At one point we had three wahoo on at the same time.
then things turned south. If you know anything about wahoo, then you know that they have slimy scales that come off very easily.
well, with a total of four fish on the deck, and slim everywhere, Grandpa slipped and reached out to catch himself, only the place that his hand landed was in the mouth of one of the wahoo. The fish was long dead, but their teeth are still razor sharp, and serrated. It cut between Grandpa's forefinger and thumb, lacerating it to the bone.
My dad stopped the boat, and got out the first aid kit to fix him up. upon getting back to dock, they went straight to the hospital. the docter started taking the bandage off, stopped, and asked who did the bandaging.
when my dad said that he had done it, the docter said that it was better then he could have done, and that it didn't warrant being taken apart and re-done. Grandpa healed with not but a tiny scare on his thumb.

Nope.

Rick.
You are one tough hombre, remind me never to get on the wrong side of you.

Hunting and diving for sixty five years accidents are bound to happen. My most glamorous was being badly mauled by a leopard. I have told this tale here before, so you old timers may relax I will not retell that misadventure.

One time Stone Sheep hunting in British Columbia, my horse slipped and fell in slippery snow rolling down a steep slope. I broke three ribs, but the horse was fine, so we kept hunting for two weeks. We would have had to call in a plane to get to a doctor. I was not much help lugging meat and horn off the mountain, but managed to polish off a large bottle of Tylenol.

While hunting bongo in the C.A.R., one of my pygmy trackers tripped and fell on my razor sharp machete which he was using. He had cut the ball of his foot all the way across to glistening bone. I put a piece of moleskin soft side down on the wound then taped with duct tape. He walked for six hours, carrying a full load of bongo meat on his head, without complaint or a special rest stop. His feet were bare. Back at base camp he refused to be taken out for for medical attention, indicating through an interpreter that I had fixed it.

I figure he is tough enough to hunt with Rick. Kindest Regatds

Those are two very lucke people, but one is not very smart.

When I was 16 I put a treble hook thru the tip and bone if my middle finger trying to take off a nice bass. Had to have it surgically removed the push it thru and cut it method wouldnt work my dad tried for two hours with a leatherman and a bowl of ice. It took three doctors and my dad to hold my arm down to pull it out.Not because I was fighting it (they numbed me up I didnt feel a thing) But it just wouldnt come out.

I tripped walking up a creek bank and fell on a a small beaver stump with all my weight. The stump poked through the skin on the left side of my torso, right under my floating rib, about three inches. I passed out after lifting myself off, and woke up some time later with my retriever licking my face. It hurt like hell, but luckily I didn't need rabies shots as I had received them a few months earlier after being bitten by a woodchuck. Yeah, a woodchuck...

Not me personally.

One of the men who I hunt with was also climbing a stand when he fell from about 10 feet, he landed on his back on top of his rifle and had to go to therapy to help the damaged nerves and such along his spine.

Also once when I was at a pig pickin' a boy who was fishing at the nearby lake got a hook stuck in his back.

I broke a leg in two places while elk hunting several years ago. Another time I walked right off the edge of a cliff and found myself dangling by my fingertips almost 90 feet above the rocks below. It is truly a miracle that I was able to rescue myself.

Hi...

Well, only one item comes to mind...and it is so insignificant compared to some of the other stories, I shall refrain from telling it.

Hope I NEVER get caught in any of those horrible circumstances described above.

But I did learn quite a lot by reading these posts.

I got a fish hook under the eye as a kid...Didn't seem that bad, cut the barb and pulled it out, cleaned it up and went back to fishing. A few days later my face was swollen and there was a lot of pus squirtin' out of it...Had to go to the hospital, they admitted me for a few days and started me on IV antibiotics...The bacteria was very agressive, if the IV antibiotics hadn't worked so well I would have lost my eye and could have even died...Who woulda' thought? I was 11 years old when this happened.