A 65-year-old man who was reportedly out on a walk with his grandson was charged by a bull bison and tossed in the air like a ragdoll Friday, even though he had not been standing anywhere near the animal.
A videographer captured the moment Friday when a bull bison, who had been rolling in some dirt, appeared to have targeted and charged an elderly man who was initially standing about 100 yards away with his grandson.
The incident happened at a campground at Yellowstone National Park as CBS News reports, and in the video, you can see the grandfather and grandson taking pictures of the male bison from a considerable distance. The bison then gets up and begins running through the campground, and appears to home in on the grandfather, chasing him around trees and then butting him with his horns and tossing the man eight or ten feet in the air.
The man suffered serious injuries but is in the hospital and is reportedly expected to recover, as ABC News reports in the segment below.
Park-goers in Yosemite, who often go to look at wildlife including elk and bison, are instructed to stay at least 25 yards away from the animals and to retreat immediately if they start to approach.
Male bison in particular are known to be unpredictably aggressive when defending their territory, and bison attacks like this are not uncommon — though they more often involve tourists who approach the animals more closely.
Mike MacLeod, the professional photographer who happened to capture the video of the attack on Friday, tells CBS Mornings that he and several other man managed to get the bison to leave the area after tossing the older man to the ground.
"I charged the bison, yelling and screaming and kind of been trying to put my camera up in the air," MacLeod told CBS. "And a bunch of other men joined me, and we successfully hazed the bison off of the, the victim."
This incident comes just a week after a bison attacked and injured a 12-year-old child near Yellowstone's "Mud Volcano," as CBS notes.
Two men, one from New Jersey and one from Florida, were also gored and injured in bison attacks at the park in the spring of 2025.
Photo by Jonathan Mast
