Following an attack that went viral, a grandpa is speaking out about his encounter with a bison at Yellowstone National Park. Despite the brutality of the attack, he survived.
But he suffered several injuries. 65-year-old Carl Isom-McDaniel said he was just unlucky. Still in the hospital, he recalled how he and his grandson stopped to take pictures. They noticed the bison while walking at the Bridge Bay Campground in Wyoming on July 10. The two had just finished dinner.
"We saw the bison and he was down, he wasn't showing aggression or anything like that," he said in a video shared by Bozeman Health in Montana. "Until it picked a target — that target happened to be me."
The attack broke his femur. According to the grandpa, he focused on trying to get his grandson to safety. But the bison is an extraordinarily fast creature. It is also super strong and weighs over 2,000 pounds. It closed the gap "faster than you could ever imagine." The bison targeted the grandfather as the target for his aggression.
Bison Attack
The attack broke his femur in four places.
"He just kept coming and he was more aggressive and as soon as he got off that tree he launched me in the air," he said. "I didn't get bruises from him launching me in the air — it was the landing that became the problem."
Still, he's glad that the bison didn't kill him.
"Even though I was on the ground, he could've stomped me, he could've gored me, he could've done anything," he said.
Bystander Mike MacLeod also spoke out about the attack as well. He said the grandfather was in good spirits after the attack by the bison.
"He was in a lot of pain, but was conscious and joking the whole time," he told Cowboy State Daily.
