Mountaineer Sports Warns of Fatal Suspension Trauma In Treestand Falls
Dr. Norman Wood, owner of Mountaineer Sports and creator of the patented Rescue One Controlled Descent System,™ warns hunters to beware of potentially fatal effects from suspension trauma.
Dr. Wood explains the seriousness of suspension trauma. “When you are wearing a full body harness, and fall from your treestand, you will first be thankful that you’re not lying on the ground either dead or busted up. But, you only have a few minutes to get back to your feet. You can start feeling the effects of suspension trauma very quickly. Your body’s weight is pushing down on your leg straps so hard that it is causing a tourniquet affect on the large veins in your legs. This pressure stops the blood in the legs from returning back up to your heart,” explains Wood.
Within 5 to 30 minutes of hanging you can be in very serious trouble as Dr. Wood further describes. “The powerful heart can pump the arterial blood down into your legs, but the low pressure venous blood can’t get back up. And this is the bad news; this is called Blood Pooling and the legs can store up to half of your total blood volume. It is just like having a major blood loss of about half of your blood without it ever leaving the body. It is the same thing as cutting both of your wrists and losing half of your blood. The longer you hang in your harness, the less blood there is to circulate through the heart and lungs to keep you alive.”
According to Wood, “Everyone should always wear a full body safety harness whenever in a treestand. It can save your life. You should be connected to the tree from the time you leave the ground until the time you get back down. There are plenty of different harnesses with suspension relief straps available on the market today to keep you safe, and you should always be using them correctly as instructed.”
The Rescue One Controlled Descent System™ was invented by Dr. Wood to help hunters avoid suspension trauma and return safely to the ground. The system is Revolutionizing Fall Safety™ and has been certified to TMA Standards by an independent testing laboratory. For a video demonstration of the Rescue One CDS II™ and more information visit www.rescueonecds.com or call 1-877-683-7678 or Email mountaineersports@live.com.
