Well, there’s a few grammar things. Remember that to have a semicolon, you have to have a full sentence on either side. “John said aloud” isn’t a full sentence, so there needs to be a comma not a period at the end of the dialogue.
That’s just my grammar freak coming out haha. There’s a few other things, but overall, really nice job! That fallling feeling is awful, and the last line made me smile. (But put a comma… “Silly man,” his wife said. “That was the wrong branch!”)
Funny little story. I didn’t quite get how the fall, landing on a cut branch or not, didn’t hurt him. someday_93 hit one grammar point, so I’ll hit another: The sentence, “Looking down John could see [the?] ladder…” is a ‘comma splice’ and needs a semi-colon or conjunction.
Amusing stuff that could just use a little more polish in the presentation/execution.
someday_93 
Sir Bic 
THX 0477 
Abstract