Camillus widow whose husband died in fall from tree stand campaigns for hunter safety

Larissa Rinaldo’s life changed in an instant last year when her husband, Michael, died in a fall from his tree stand while deer hunting.

Michael, an avid hunter, wasn’t wearing his safety harness.

For months afterward, Rinaldo was in state of shock. When we published her story earlier this year, she was deluged with messages from hunters all over the state who told her stories about falling from their own tree stands because they weren’t wearing a harness.

“I sat down on the couch one day and I was just like, I have to do something,” she said.

Now Rinaldo is on a mission to make sure this preventable tragedy doesn’t happen to anyone else. So she designed and sold t-shirts with the catchphrase, ‘Strap up before you go up.’

Last May, she marched in the Camillus’s Memorial Day parade along with 267 volunteers wearing her t-shirt. Since then she’s expanded into hoodies and other items.

Demand for the merchandise required Rinaldo to move her operation to a corner of Rumetco Sales, her family’s industrial supply shop in Syracuse. But she didn’t stop there.

At the start of bow hunting season in October, Rinaldo put up her first billboard emblazoned with her catchphrase off I-690 in Syracuse, followed by two more billboards outside her family’s shop, and another at the state fairgrounds.

The safety campaign has helped her get through the pain.

“I’ve definitely been in fight or flight mode,” she said. “This helps me though, to honor [Michael], and potentially save lives. I can’t believe it’s been a year.”

Rinaldo is only getting started. She’ll have a booth at the New York Sportsman’s Expo in January, where she plans to raffle off free safety harnesses. After that, she plans to build a website and register as a nonprofit.

“It’s been nonstop,” she said. “Just spread awareness, that’s all I want.”

The state Department of Environmental Conservation keeps track of what it calls “elevated hunting incidents” (EHIs), or falls from…