Glad you didn't get hurt any worse. You had to hit HARD to break your femur. Holy Hell.
We had a platform with a pop up and used a regular 6ft step ladder as the ladder (good angle). One trip up I watched my dad open the popup and get in from the ladder and I build a landing platform before we came back up and attached that to the platform. After doing it I was dumb for not having it in the first place.
If you want a 4x4 platform, build it 6x4 and use the extra 2x4 as a landing area. Even a 2x2 landing area is enough. Only cost an extra $20-30 if you build it out of 2x8's w/ 2x4 rails.
First I pray OP makes a full recovery.
Our stands all have "decks" to stand on and get into the house, most of our houses are 5'x5' with a 3'x5' deck. We stopped using wooden ladders years ago when one failed on a hunter causing him to fall like that. He landed fine and was uninjured but landed on his rifle and ruined a $3500 scope. All our stands have aluminum ladders screwed to the deck, instead of wooden. We set our houses on old scaffold. Most are 3 sections high (about 10-12' high). We set the scaffold up, then lay two 6x6's across the scaffold and set the house on top of that. We drive a T post at all 4 corners and drill through them and the scaffold and bolt it together.
We also install hand holds, usually stainless grab bars like used in showers, at the top of the shooting houses for when you step off the ladder and onto the deck. I had not considered adding a rail around the deck but think ill add those next summer.
