A grandfather was hurled eight feet into the air by a 2,000-pound bison after the animal charged at him in front of hikers at Yellowstone National Park. The attack, captured on camera by professional photographer Mike MacLeod, left Carl McDaniel with a broken hip and other serious injuries.
MacLeod, a former Army photographer, had been camping at Bridge Bay Campground by Yellowstone Lake when he spotted the bison frolicking on the dusty ground. 'I was just trying to get some dramatic footage of that bison having a fit,' he told Cowboy State Daily. 'I would not have predicted that happening.'
“A 2,000lb bison tossed a grandfather 8ft in the air at Yellowstone, leaving him with a broken hip.”
Just moments before the attack, the bison had charged at a group of children taking pictures from a distance. Then it turned its attention to McDaniel, a community leader from Kendall, Washington, who had stopped to take photographs with his young grandson. The pair tried to shelter behind trees, but the bull pursued the grandfather, caught up, and hooked him with its left horn on his hip, flipping him several feet above the animal's six-foot height.
'You can tell he was agitated, pissed off and charging at anything and everything,' MacLeod said. He and other bystanders managed to scare the bison away while others called 911. McDaniel, described as a Good Samaritan who volunteers as a Santa Claus in his hometown, was taken to hospital. His grandson told MacLeod the injuries were 'pretty significant' and that McDaniel was 'not out of the woods yet.'
The bison, the largest land mammal in North America, can run three times faster than humans. The National Park Service advises visitors to stay at least 25 yards away from them. Yellowstone's bison herd, numbering around 5,300, is the only group in the US that has roamed freely since prehistoric times, though they were hunted to near extinction in the 1800s before Army protection.
The incident is the second bison attack at Yellowstone this year. In June, a 12-year-old was injured north of Fishing Bridge.
