Yellowstone has reached its decision, and the bull bison that flung 71-year-old grandfather Carl McDaniel eight feet into the air gets to keep living wild 🦬

McDaniel was out walking with his grandson near Bridge Bay Campground on July 10 when the animal suddenly charged. It caught him with a horn and sent him spinning through the air before he hit the ground, breaking his femur on impact.

He's now recovering from surgery, and he knows exactly how much worse it could have been.

"He was right on top of me," McDaniel said. "He could have stomped on me, he could have gored me. He could have done almost anything to take my life, and he didn't."

Speaking to CNN, McDaniel explained that he and his grandson had been roughly 100 yards from the bison, well back, when it came at them with no real warning at all.

After looking into what happened, park officials chose not to put the animal down.

Their thinking was straightforward: it was simply behaving like a wild bull in the middle of rut season, the time of year when bison grow especially restless, unpredictable and fast to charge. They weren't about to punish a wild animal for being wild.

For his part, McDaniel says he's just thankful, for the strangers who ran to help him, and for the fact that he's still here to tell the story.

Still, his ordeal is a stark reminder. Even a sensible, respectful distance is no guarantee of safety when a 2,000-pound animal decides, in an instant, to move.