Ergonomics and Human Factors and Deer Hunting Part 2

This is the third blog in the series on deer hunting and Lean, Ergonomics (Human Factors, Six Sigma and Systems Thinking (L.E.S.S.).

In my last blog I spent time talking about how I adjusted my rifle to fit me.  In this blog I want to discuss two other items—tree stands (physical ergonomics) and my crossbow (human factors).

My husband and I hunt off the ground on tree stands.  I will be completely upfront about tree stands—all of them are too heavy for me to carry and lift.  If it wasn’t for my husband I’m sure I would be using ground blinds.  That being said we are looking at hang-on portable stands that are made of lightweight aluminum.  I haven’t had a chance to look at them yet but the weight of the hang-on stand (11 lbs) fits right within my ability.  A tree stand combination that should fit my abilities should be that type of stand with climbing sticks.  I’m looking forward to 2013 to try this.

Now to my crossbow.  Due a left shoulder injury I can’t pull back a compound bow.  So I’ve been bow hunting with a crossbow.  My father-in-law hunted with a crossbow so we had a good idea of what we were looking for when purchasing a crossbow.  We decided on the 6 Point Proslider crossbow by Ten Point.  We immediately bought a Steddy Eddy for it since it was relatively heavy.  A very important user issue with a crossbow is to always keep your thumb and fingers well below the slide in order to avoid significant injury when the bow is fired and the string moves over the slide.  I’m happy to report that my first season with it I got a nice doe and a 6 point buck (ironically!).  During my second season with it I had success and a significant injury with it at the same time.  I hit a 8 point buck but unfortunately I spined it.  I remember getting down from the stand and quickly walking over to him so I could do the kill shot.  I was very excited, upset that I had spined him and not thinking clearly when I took the kill shot—I had my right thumb above the slide.  I remember firing and then shortly thereafter feeling a bad pain in my thumb—yes, I had done what I knew I should have never done—had my thumb in the wrong place.  My husband came over and I immediately said we need to leave the woods and get to the ER because I shot the tip of my thumb off.  Well, luckily it was still attached (barely) and the doctor was able to stitch it together.  I still have my entire thumb.  Looking back on what happened I can easily say that at the time my “common sense” had left me at that moment.  A typical incident investigation would have blamed the hunter (me) for what happened.  I admit that I wasn’t thinking clearly—I was rushing, excited and frustrated all at the same time.  Not a good combination for things to go well.  But as an ergonomist I got to thinking was there any way to design the crossbow so that could not happen.  Well, I’m very pleased to see that Ten Point has addressed this risk factor with several models of their 2012 crossbows.  They now have a button located well beneath the slide that has to be pushed in order to fire the crossbow.  This design considers the human factors that lead to misuse and thumb/finger injuries.  This design would have prevented what I did three years ago.  I really love that they did this because it proves yet once again that instead of telling someone to “be safe”, “be careful”, or “remember not to do that”, it is much more effective to “idiot proof” the design so that unsafe behavior can’t happen.