My butt just got saved from a 20 foot fall with my lifeline. Stepping into stand and straps broke. Good to know the things work. If you are not using them you should.
My husband had a heart attack and fell out of his stand 11 years ago. He was lucky and made it back to the house to get help...broke seven ribs and ruptured his spleen in the fall.
He now wears his harness if in an elevated stand and takes his phone with him!
Good deal... Everyone shoud wear one attached it a lifeline AND check all your stands straps before season. I put a new strap on all my stands a every year.
I don't hunt without one. We don't have lifelines on all of our stands due to the costs involved (14 sets/28 stands) but we have them in the more challenging stands. The others we have safety ropes in places so we can clip in before stepping onto the stand, not ideal but the best we can do considering the number of stands we use. We use two ratchet straps on every stand and each year the bottom strap goes out of service, the top strap moves down to the bottom position and a new strap goes up top. So far this has worked very well for us, we've not had any issues with straps failing or coming loose.