The grandfather tossed by a bison at Yellowstone National Park’s Bridge Bay Campground has a long road of recovery ahead of him but is expected to recover.
He was even making jokes about it in the moments after it happened, the photographer who witnessed the event tells Cowboy State Daily.
Carl Ison-McDaniel, 65, of Kendall, Washington, broke his femur in four places after being tossed airborne by a bull bison Friday. He remains hospitalized as he recovers from being thrown at least 8 feet off the ground and landing hard
On Sunday, he posted a brief note on Facebook.
“Thank you everyone I am OK,” he wrote.
Mike MacLeod, a photographer from Bozeman, Montana, said he’s been in contact with McDaniel’s grandson, who was with him when it occurred.
“(The family) seems to be protecting their privacy, so I don’t want to pry any more than I already have,” he told Cowboy State Daily.
He did, however, say that McDaniel was “in good spirits” immediately after his harrowing ordeal.
“He was in a lot of pain, but was conscious and joking the whole time,” he said.
Nothing Wrong
McDaniel was walking past the Bridge Bay Campground with his 13-year-old grandson around 8:30 p.m. when the incident occurred. The bull bison had been there for some time, running through the campsites and mock-charging people, tents and picnic tables.
When McDaniel and his grandson arrived, the bison was rolling in a dust wallow, and it seemed to have momentarily calmed down. The pair was unaware of how aggressively it had been behaving moments earlier.
“They weren't even in that camping loop,” McLeod said. “They were walking along the road, quite a ways away from the bison. They stopped, got their phones out, and took some pictures, and when the bison started to get up, (McDaniel) was like, “OK, time to leave.’”
MacLeod has emphasized multiple times, during interviews with national and international news publications since the incident, that McDaniel and his grandson did nothing to provoke the bison and weren’t acting irresponsibly.
When the bison started running toward them, McDaniel ran behind a line of trees to put something between himself and the bison. He couldn’t have anticipated the bison would run into the trees, undeterred by the barrier.
“(McDaniel) made a lap around the trees, and the bison chased him through the trees,” MacLeod said. “I thought he'd lost him, but the bison kept going around and came out the other side.”
That’s when the bison hooked its horn around McDaniel’s leg and tossed him into the air. He landed hard on his right side, resulting in several broken bones.
At that point, MacLeod put his camera down and ran at the bison, "making myself as big and loud as I could," to drive it off. When several other observers followed suit, the bison ran off.
In one sense, McDaniel was lucky. He didn’t appear to have been gored by the bison’s horns, which could have made the incident fatal.
“Another gal and I did a blood sweep, but we couldn’t find any blood,” he said. “(McDaniel) was conscious and in good spirits until EMS arrived.”
Community Leader
McDaniel didn’t share any additional information on the incident or his condition, although his situation has improved from “critical” to “serious.”
According to Cascadia Daily News, McDaniel is an active member of his community in northwest Washington.
He’s on multiple boards in Kendall, including Foothills Community Alliance and the Columbia Valley water and parks districts. He’s also one of the co-founders of The Foothills Communication Hub, an online publication with news and event information for Kendall and several other communities in northwest Washington.
He’s not likely to forget his visit to northwest Wyoming anytime soon.
MacLeod said he shared his videos of the bison with McDaniel’s grandson. He wanted to review his actions to see if there was any way he might have contributed to the bison’s aggression, and MacLeod repeatedly reassured him that he didn’t do anything wrong.
“He was really worried and wanted to see the video to make sure that it wasn't his fault,” he said. “It’s not his fault. You can tell from the very beginning. That was a really, really angry bison.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
