Carl McDaniel, 65, suffered multiple bone fractures in the July 10 attack at Yellowstone National Park
, speaking out for the first time about the terrifying encounter.
McDaniel was hospitalized with a broken femur after a bison charged and tossed him into the air Friday evening at the park’s Bridge Bay Campground
, near Yellowstone Lake in Wyoming.
“We saw the bison, and he was down. He wasn’t showing aggression or anything like that,” the great-grandfather said. “They move faster than you could ever imagine. It picked a target. That target happened to be me.”
McDaniel was walking with his 13-year-old grandson after dinner.
“We were about a hundred yards away [and the bison] was not aggressive,” McDaniel told CNN, noting that they took photos of the animal and moved on.
A truck horn changed everything.
“At the same time, a truck drove by, and the driver laid on his horn in what appeared to be an attempt to get the bison to move,” McDaniel said.
“There was little time to decide what to do. At that point, he was within 100 yards; he could be to us in seconds, so I told my grandson to run in one direction and I went the other to try and draw him away,” McDaniel said.
The grandfather then became the target.
“He just kept coming, and he was more aggressive, and as soon as he got off that tree he launched me in the air.”
Photographer Mike MacLeod captured the moment on video.
“The bison hooked him with his left horn on his hip and tossed him in the air. He made a perfect flip and landed on his side.”
The worst part wasn’t the launch.
“It was the landing that became the problem,” He said it wasn’t being tossed in the air that caused his injuries. “I didn’t get bruises from him launching me in air.”
“He was right on top of me,” McDaniel said of the bison. “He could have stomped on me, he could have gored me, he could have done almost anything to take my life, but he did not do so.”
MacLeod jumped in.
“MacLeod shared that he stopped filming when the bison was standing over McDaniel in an effort to rush over and help him. ‘I was really afraid he was going to gore the guy on the ground, so I stopped videotaping and ran at the bison, yelled loud.'”
The intervention worked.
“A nurse started tending to his leg, while another bystander held his head.”
He posted to Facebook on Sunday, July 12th, thanking everyone for their concerns and stating that he is okay.
“They patched his femur back together, and the pain immediately subsided tremendously,” MacLeod said.
“He joked with the staff in the ambulance on the two-and-a-half-hour ride to the hospital in Bozeman, Montana. ‘He’s a funny guy. He’s got a great sense of humor. He thinks all the memes coming out about him are hilarious,’ MacLeod said.”
MacLeod warned others not to become complacent.
“I think we take comfort watching other people do dumb things. So, we no longer think it’s dumb because they’re getting away with it. So it couldn’t be that unsafe. And it is. It is dangerous.”
Park guidelines exist for a reason.
Yellowstone National Park recommends visitors maintain a distance of at least 25 yards when viewing bison.
In the viral moment that unfolded at Bridge Bay Campground on July 10, video captured a family outing at one of Yellowstone’s busiest campgrounds.
The bison was “angry, agitated and charging anything and everything,”
MacLeod explained.
The animal had been agitated for several minutes before, first charging a group of boys near a tent before chasing off a young couple from their campsite.
The grandfather and grandson, who had kept proper distance, were walking along the perimeter road when the bison’s attention turned to them.
After noticing the tourists, the bison chased the man, hooking him with his left horn and tossing him into the air.
When the older man hit the ground, the bison stopped but didn’t run away. It stood over the man he’d just tossed, shaking his head in an obvious display of agitation.
Bison have injured more people in Yellowstone than any other wild animal.
McDaniel remains determined in his recovery.
Since the attack, MacLeod and McDaniel have been talking regularly on the phone, with MacLeod telling NewsNation that he’s recovering well and has an amazing attitude about the whole thing.
“Last night, my wife and I spent two hours with Carl, the fella who got thrown in the air, and together we kind of put the pieces of the puzzle together to iron out some things,” MacLeod said in an interview.
McDaniel is recovering at Bozeman Health Deaconess Medical Center in Montana.