When Jerry Snyder, head basketball coach at Lake City, Minnesota, got down off a ladder in the late 1970s on the off chance that the tall kid walking along the pavement could play basketball he made one of the best choices of his career.  He had spotted highschooler Randy Breuer walking with friends in the neighbourhood.  Whilst painting a house for a summer job in the late 1970s he noticed that one of the group was at least two feet taller than the others, so Snyder took the chance that this impossibly tall child could be a future basketball star and descended his ladder to talk to him.  Fast forward a couple of years and the tall child from the pavement was playing for Lake City in a state-wide league, and would be playing for Minnesota the year after.

When Jerry got down off that ladder he did not know it was going to be one of the best decisions he would ever make, and that is true of everyone who decides to descend a ladder rather than stay up there any longer than necessary.  Fatigue and cold can make prolonged periods up a ladder very unsafe, so the decision to climb down, warm up and have a break could be one of the best decisions you ever make.  If, for example, you decided to stay up there for ten minutes in a tired state, you could fall off and seriously injure yourself, making that decision one of the worst of your life.  The same principle applies to over-reaching on a ladder; instead of putting your health and life at risk by reaching further than is safe, climb down the ladder and move it to the correct place, as over-reaching causes a huge number of ladder-related accidents every year.  Stay safe, and climb down the ladder whenever you need to in order to stay safe, or perhaps to discover the next sporting hero!