Man Gored, Trampled by a Bison While on Trail Run at Utah State Park

Kyler Bourgeous was running on a trail in Antelope Island State Park when he encountered a bison that gored and trampled him on June 1, 2019. Kyler Bourgeous/GoFundMe

A 30-year-old college student was gored and trampled by a bison while he was out on a trail run at Antelope Island State Park in Utah on June 1.

Kyler Bourgeous encountered a pair of bison after he reached the top of a blind hill while running on the Frary Peak Trail. Bourgeous immediately turned to avoid the animals but one of them came charging forward and gored the 30-year-old in the hip and shoulder, sending the young man flying into the air and down the hill.

“He said, ‘I just turned and tried to run, and I could see I wasn’t going to make it,’” his mother Bonnie Bourgeous said, reported Fox 13.

But the bison did not stop there. it then kicked and trampled Bourgeous, cracking his rib and cutting his head during the attack, before the bison finally stopped.

“If he had not turned just one inch this way or that way, it would have gone through his heart and lungs and lower internal organs and there’s no way he would have survived,” Bonnie added.

Bourgeous said when the attack stopped he called at some nearby hikers for help.

“I yelled for some nearby hikers to call 911 as I lay in a ball hoping the bison wouldn’t attack again,” he wrote on a crowdfunding account.

He said he was subsequently rescued and flown off the mountain. Bourgeous suffered injuries in his ribs and internal organs, reported Fox News.

“After being x-rayed and cat scanned, I was stitched up and received a tube in my chest to keep my lung from collapsing. I’m still hospitalized from my injuries where I’m doing my best to move but remain mostly bedridden with drains coming out of my wounds,” Bourgeous said.

Bourgeous is now recovering in hospital. He said he has set up a GoFundMe account in order to raise money for his medical bill. The 30-year-old, who is a full-time student at Weber States, said he is currently only on Medicaid.

As of June 4, he had raised over $2,100 of his $50,000 goal.

A similar incident, which occurred in March 2013, a man was rammed into a fence at the same State Park in Utah.

The incident happened when the Antelope Island Buffalo Run was about to begin. The man, Ty Draper, told Deseret News that a herd of bison had migrated in front of a group of runners, who were about the start the race.

In order to protect the runners, Draper stepped into bison territory in order to get the animals to move.

“I figured I had a more gentle way of doing it (convincing the bison to move) because I wasn’t running straight at him in a herd,” Draper told the newspaper.

This had indeed caught the attention of a bison who turned around and started charging at Draper and launched the man into the air.

Draper said during the attack the bison suddenly stopped and walked away. He said, “I knew that I was probably going to get away from it, if I was lucky, with some severe injuries, if not death.”

The Utah State Park website has warned people to stay away from bison as they can be dangerous. “Do not approach bison for any reason,” the website wrote.