Carl McDaniel credits fortune and animal restraint after a bull bison launched him into the air during a family camping trip at Yellowstone National Park on Friday, breaking his femur in four places but leaving him alive to tell the story.
The 65-year-old grandfather, speaking publicly for the first time from a hospital bed on Monday just hours after surgery, said the 2,000-pound animal could have easily killed him once he was pinned to the ground. "When I was on the ground immobile, unable to move, he was right on top of me," McDaniel told CNN. "He could have stomped on me; he could have gored me; he could have done almost anything to take my life and he did not do so."
McDaniel and his 13-year-old grandson were taking an after-dinner walk at Bridge Bay campsite when they spotted the bison roughly 100 yards away. The animal appeared calm as they snapped photos and continued walking. Seconds later, it charged.
"There was little time to decide what to do," McDaniel recalled. He instructed his grandson to run one direction while he bolted another, hoping to draw the animal away from the boy. The tactic succeeded in keeping his grandson unhurt, but the bison closed the gap and flipped McDaniel skyward with a thrust of its horned head.
Video captured by photographer Mike MacLeod and viewed over 1.1 million times on YouTube shows the violent encounter. MacLeod was shooting footage when he witnessed the animal become what he described as "agitated, pissed off and charging anything and everything." He and other nearby campers immediately rushed to McDaniel, shouting and clapping to scare the bison away and prevent further harm.
"All the people that were there were amazing," McDaniel said of the group that intervened. "They were all positive, they were trying to help as best they could."
Emergency responders arrived quickly and transported him to a local hospital, which then arranged a two-hour ambulance transfer to a facility in Bozeman, Montana. McDaniel said the ride was agonizing, but by Monday he had recovered enough strength to stand despite the severity of his injuries and the surgical repairs required.
McDaniel, who lives in Kendall, Washington, and serves on several community boards, described his condition as "not as catastrophic as it could have been." He expects a lengthy physical therapy regimen to regain his mobility.
MacLeod, the photographer who documented the attack, offered a more detailed portrait of McDaniel's bearing during the immediate aftermath. "He was in a lot of pain with his leg, and otherwise he was conscious the whole time, in good spirits, joking," MacLeod told the New York Times.
McDaniel had made the trip to Yellowstone with his grandson as part of a summer tradition they maintain each year. The U.S. National Park Service did not specify whether the bison was in rutting season, which runs June through September, though heightened aggression during mating periods is common among the species.
Author James Rodriguez: "A bison attack that doesn't end in a goring or death is extraordinary luck, not a narrow escape from a kind animal, and McDaniel knows it."
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