Witness to Bison Attack Madness Reveals What You Didn’t See

The photographer who caught the frightening video of a grandfather being thrown into the air by a rampaging bison at Yellowstone National Park spoke to CNN on Monday night.

“Once he hit the grandfather, and the grandfather was lying motionless on the ground, he was looking for some other threat, and what I was worried about is that he wasn’t going to find any other threat there, so he was going to go back to the victim and really do him in,” Mike MacLeod told CNN journalist Erin Burnett.

The photographer recalls first witnessing the bison charging a group of boys, causing them to scatter. The bison then ran into the campsite of a young couple, chasing them away from their dinner.

The bison next started rolling around in the dust when the grandfather and his grandson approached the area, keeping a safe distance from the animal. He charged at the two of them anyway, chasing them around a tree.

“I thought that they were safe, and I was really surprised,” MacLeod told CNN, saying nothing he saw of the pair would have prompted an attack. However, MacLeod said this time of year might have been a reason for the rampage.

“It’s the beginning of mating season, so all the males want to fight anything.”

Bison mating season runs from June to September, with the most intense period from July to August. According to the National Park Service, males will roll violently on the ground to display aggression, one of the ways they court females.

After the attack, MacLeod stopped filming and ran over, as did a number of other campers. They hazed the bison away, and he ran off. Carl Isom-McDaniel, the victim in his mid-60s, was found laying on his side, complaining of really severe pain in his leg.

“The first thing he asked was ‘how is my grandson?’” MacLeod recalls.

McDaniel is recovering from several broken bones after the agitated animal charged at him and launched him eight feet into the air. His grandson, 13, was not injured.