Wisconsin Ag Connection - Study: Too Many Hunters are Falling From Tree Stands

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Study: Too Many Hunters are Falling From Tree Stands
Wisconsin Ag Connection - 11/24/2015

Despite safety education efforts, Wisconsin deer hunters are just as apt to fall out of a tree as they were five years ago. That's according to a study published by a team of researchers from Marshfield Clinic, the National Farm Medicine Center and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

The groups examined five-year trends in falls among hunters in central and northern Wisconsin. Jeff VanWormer, PhD is an associate research scientist at the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation. He says efforts to improve tree stand safety must be accelerated, but more rigorous research is also needed to pinpoint factors most likely to cause hunter falls.

"Tree stand falls are preventable, but they are not subject to formal injury surveillance and are rarely a topic of scientific research," VanWormer said. "Better information about these injuries could help make hunter safety efforts more effective."

The Wisconsin study reviewed electronic health records of about 16,700 deer hunters in each of five recent hunting seasons between 2009-2013. Researchers screened medical chart note documents to identify patients from the study area who received medical attention for a tree stand fall.

In that time, they found 39 confirmed medically-attended tree stand fall injuries, which mostly occurred during archery-only times of the deer hunting season. The most common activities at the time of the fall were climbing down from a tree stand.

The study also found that nearly 9 in 10 tree stand fall patients were overweight or obese.

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