A vacation to Yellowstone National Park is supposed to be the trip of a lifetime.
But there’s danger lurking behind the park’s majestic splendor.
And a tourist visiting Yellowstone National Park went through hell after this nightmare came true.
A woman is gored and lifted off of the ground by a bison at Yellowstone
Yellowstone National Park became the first national park in the world after an act of Congress in 1872.
It’s become one of the most popular national parks in the country for its abundant wildlife, breathtaking views, and geothermal areas that feature hot springs and geysers.
The start of summer means that tourists will begin flocking to Yellowstone.
One of the most popular animals at the park for tourists to view is its free-ranging herds of bison.
Bison are the largest land animals in North America.
Tourists at Yellowstone National Park are warned not to approach the wildlife and to stay at least 25 yards away from large mammals like bison, elk, bighorn sheep, deer, and moose.
But every year tourists break the park’s rules.
And sometimes doing that has tragic consequences.
An 83-year-old woman from Greenville, South Carolina was gored and lifted off of the ground by a bison at Yellowstone.
The woman was walking near the Storm Point Trail at Yellowstone Lake when the bison attack happened.
The National Park Service said the bison was “defending its space, came within a few feet of the woman and lifted her about a foot off the ground with its horns.”
Emergency responders took her to a local medical center before she was airlifted to the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center with “serious injuries.”
Bison are a surprising danger at Yellowstone
Wolves, bears, and mountain lions are the usual suspects for being the deadliest animals at Yellowstone National Park.
But the National Park Service said that bison have injured more people at the national park than any other animal.
Tourists are often lured into a false sense of security because of the bison’s usually reserved nature.
“Bison are not aggressive animals but will defend their space when threatened,” the National Park Service stated. “They are unpredictable and can run three times faster than humans.”
A woman was gored by a bison near the shore of Lake Yellowstone in the same area of the park as the South Carolina woman last year.
“The year before, two other Yellowstone visitors were attacked by bison within weeks of each other. In May 2022, a 25-year-old woman was gored by a female bison and tossed 10 feet into the air after she approached the animal near the Old Faithful geyser, park officials said; she suffered a puncture wound and other injuries. The following month, a 34-year-old man from Colorado Springs was walking with his family on a boardwalk near Giant Geyser when a bull bison charged the group and the family did not leave the area, park officials said. The man was gored by the bull and suffered an arm injury, it said,” the Washington Post reported.
A trip to Yellowstone can be the vacation of a lifetime but not respecting the park’s rules could turn it into a nightmare.
