The Yellowstone National Park tourist tossed into the air like a rag doll by a marauding bull bison has been identified as a community-minded grandfather who immediately cracked jokes about his painful, now-viral ordeal.
Carl Isom-McDaniel suffered multiple broken bones in the frightening encounter with the beast Friday night at the Bridge Bay Campground near Yellowstone Lake in the southeast quadrant of the park, where he was traveling with his grandson.
But he made light of the attack even as he waited for a park ambulance to arrive, according to the professional photographer who captured the now-wildly viral moment.
“He was in a lot of pain with his leg, and otherwise he was conscious the whole time, in good spirits, joking,” photographer Mike MacLeod told the New York Times.
Neither McDaniel nor his grandson did anything to provoke the animal and were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, according to the photog who is based in Bozeman, Montana.
Before the bison’s viral encounter with McDaniel, the animal — likely hopped up on testosterone as mating season begins — had already menaced several groups of visitors, including a small group of teenage boys who quickly scattered when the bison charged, the shutterbug told the Times.
After scaring off the teens, the bison took a moment to rest in the dirt near a picnic table just off a campground road that was still covered in dinner leftovers.
When he got up, MacLeod told the outlet, “it was kicking like a rodeo horse who’s clearly very agitated.”
It was at that inopportune time that a pickup truck drove by and McDaniel and his grandson stopped to take pictures of the bison, having no idea he was in an irritated state.
“The bison stopped rolling in the dust and kind of sat up. He’s looking in the direction of those two,” MacLeod said.
“And as soon as they stop taking pictures, the bison stands up and the grandfather’s like, ‘Let’s get out of here. I don’t like this.’”
Another pickup truck drove by at that moment, which appeared to briefly capture the attention of the bison. However, once the vehicle was out of sight the massive creature turned his attention to McDaniel and his grandson, chasing them around a copse of pine trees.
The grandson was able to escape using some fancy footwork, but McDaniel was a sitting duck as the bison charged at him, hooking him with his left horn near his hip before flipping him some eight feet into the air.
MacLeod, who was watching in horror from a distance, said he could tell the bison was “really, really angry” by his body language — his head rearing up and down in an aggressive manner.
It was at that moment that he decided to intervene.
“I put my camera down and I ran at the bison pumping my arms up and down, yelling at the top of my lungs and jumping up trying to look big and distracting,” he said.
Other park visitors followed suit, which the photographer believes eventually convinced the bison to flee the scene. Fellow tourists stayed by McDaniel’s side while they waited for a park ambulance to transport him to a hospital for treatment, which arrived about 10 minutes later.
Park regulations require visitors to keep their distance from bison — giving them at least 75 feet of breathing room, particularly during mating season, which coincides with the height of Yellowstone’s tourist season.
MacLeod said every visitor he observed in the park Friday, including McDaniel and his grandson, were keeping a “respectful distance” from the animal, and had done nothing to provoke it to charge.
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