Kyler Bourgeous was attacked by a bison at Utah's Antelope Island State Park in June. Bourgeous was thrown in the air, gored on the right side of his torso, and trampled by the bison. He sustained some broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and head injuries.
Despite the rarity of such an attack—five reported bison incidents within the last decade at the park which has seen over 4 million visitors—the last thing you would expect is for Bourgeous to test his poor luck and return to Antelope Island State Park just a few months later. But that's exactly what he did, but this time around, he brought a sacrifice date, Kayleigh Davis.
Davis was running with Bourgeous last Friday night when the two agreed to meet at a mile marker when she ran ahead as he applied bug spray. She was traveling on what witnesses claim was an established trail at Antelope Island State Park when she encountered a bison. She claims to have been thrown about 15 feet in the air when the bison struck her with its head.
"That’s when he flipped me up in the air," Davis told Utah NBC affiliate KSL. "[After], he was hanging over me, sniffing me for a minute, and he was digging like he was about to charge again. I just stayed still. I was actually screaming at that moment." She was airlifted to a nearby hospital where she was treated for a broken ankle and a cut on her calf.
"Bison aren't predators, so they don't have a chase instinct," Antelope Island State Park assistant manager Wendy Wilson said, per CNN. "They just respond to what they feel is a threat. So just staying still, not showing any movements or aggression, or trying to get away, was probably the right thing to do." Davis believes the bison was reacting to four bikers who rode by.
"I thought my incident was a freak accident with really bad luck with the positioning, and that we’d be fine going back there," Bourgeous told KSL, adding that while he doesn't consider himself to be superstitious, he gets the feeling that the bison in Antelope Island State Park don’t like him.
