A man in his 40s was seriously injured Thursday afternoon after falling from his tree stand in Donegal Township, triggering a rescue effort that ended with him being flown to a Pittsburgh hospital. The man was found with back pain and unable to move near the intersection of Hickey Bottom and Duffy School roads.
According to wbut.com, the Butler County 911 Center received the call at about 3:30 p.m. Thursday. Responders were told a man in his 40s was complaining of back pain and could not move after falling from the stand, as first reported by ButlerRadio.com.
Getting him down and out safely took a coordinated effort. Emergency responders from Chicora and Karns City had to extricate the hunter from his position before he could be moved for treatment, per the same account.
Airlifted to Allegheny General
Once free, the man was flown out rather than driven, underscoring how serious his condition appeared on scene. A Life Flight helicopter landed at Happy Hunters Sportsman's Club, and the man was taken to Allegheny General Hospital, the station's report states. His condition remained unknown at the time of publication.
The fall fits a troubling pattern. Falls from tree stands are the most common hunting-related injury, according to Penn State trauma coordinator Amy Bollinger, cited by Penn State University. Most stands sit 10 to 20 feet off the ground, and a fall from that height can cause broken bones, spinal cord injuries, head injuries, or worse, Penn State notes.
A Recurring Toll Across Pennsylvania
The Pennsylvania Game Commission investigated 10 elevated tree stand incidents in 2025, including three fatalities, according to lehighvalleylive.com. Of the seven nonfatal falls that year, four resulted in severe, debilitating injuries such as a broken back, fractured hip, or cracked skull, the outlet reported. None of those four injured hunters were using a fall arrest system or safety harness, per the same account.
The gap in safety gear use appears widespread. Industry estimates suggest only about one in two tree-stand hunters wears a full-body safety harness, according to lancasteronline.com. The Treestand Manufacturers Association has found that 82 percent of people injured in tree-stand incidents were not wearing any type of fall-restraint device, the same report states.
A Geisinger Health System study cited by the outlet found that at least 280 hunters were injured and six died in Pennsylvania tree-stand falls between 1987 and 2001, with the annual injury rate climbing from 0.7 per 100,000 hunters in 1987 to 4.8 per 100,000 by 2001. Pennsylvania's Hunter-Trapper Safety Education Course covers proper tree-stand use, including maintaining three points of contact while climbing and using fall-restraint devices, according to the same source.
Similar incidents have played out elsewhere in the region. A Cumberland man was injured after falling approximately 20 feet from a tree stand, according to times-news.com.
