Halen Carbajal, Provo, Utah man survives being gored by bison after ‘idiotically’ attempting to pet wild beast. Is left with serious injuries, including lacerated liver and gash to stomach.
Probably lucky to still be alive. A Utah man badly gored by a bison last month after trying to pet the wild animal was left with a lacerated liver and an 8 inch gash.
Halen Carbajal of Provo was severely injured after approaching the wild beast on his way home from an early Thanksgiving with his girlfriend and attempting to pet it.
He noticed the herd of bison on a neighbor’s property and decided to get a closer look.
‘He rocked me pretty good.’
‘I was definitely an idiot in this scenario. I crossed through the fence. I started walking back near the fence,’ Carbajal told KUTV. ‘By the time I got back to the fence, he had followed me all the way over, and I was like ‘oh that’s pretty cool.’
But there was more to come.
‘I kind of did want to pet him, so I was just being naïve about the whole thing, so I did that, and yeah he just rocked me pretty good.’
The hapless man described the animal dipping its head down moments before his horn puncturing him and flipping him over. Fortunately for Carbajal he managed to escape despite being badly hurt.
‘There was a fence with some pretty good gaps in it, so I squeezed through the lower ones. I don’t think he was really trying to attack me. I think he was just curious because he didn’t go after me after that,’ Carbajal tolk KUTV.
The Provo man suffered an 8-inch gash to the stomach, a broken rib, a lacerated liver and a banged-up lung, according to a GoFundMe page created to help with his medical bills.
Reverence for crazy beasts
He was airlifted to the ICU where he spent seven days in the hospital and is now home recovering.
‘Halen is one of the best and most selfless people I know,’ the fundraiser states.
‘He just finished a season working with the Utah Conservation Corps and he relies on his physical health for the kinds of work he does.’
A spokesperson for the Utah Department of Wildlife Resources, Faith Heaton-Jolley, told KUTV that because the bison look like cows, there is a common misconception they’re domestic or friendly when they are in fact wild animals who can be aggressive.
‘It was for sure a reality check or recognizing my naivety and thinking it would be fine to try and touch one, and just realizing that you got to have a lot more reverence for big crazy beasts like that,’ Carbajal told KUTV.
‘You have to have a lot more reverence for big crazy beasts like that you know.’
Tips on when or if you encounter a bison:
- If you see a bison and it stops what it is doing and starts paying attention to you, you’re too close
- If the bison is in the middle of the road, and you’re driving by, just wait for it to pass. Don’t get out of your vehicle. ‘
- Common sense would dictate under no circumstances should you ever seek to approach a bison, let alone pet it. Then there have also been these unfortunate and presumably foreseeable consequences involving bison, that would have been best left alone.
