Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
A bison’s body language is unmistakable. The 2,000 pound behemoths will let you when you are getting too close, as we’ve seen play out time and time again at Yellowstone National Park. Suddenly everyone speaks fluent bison body language when the animal’s horns dip down and they start running.
Bison often start a chain reaction when they encounter idiotic tourists. When they start on a mad dash, the people that were getting too close also start running at full speed.
And I point this out every time I cover a bison story out of Yellowstone, so forgive me if I sound like a broken record when I say that the National Park Service advises tourists to stay at least 25 yards away from bison. Why? Because this is what happens when you don’t.
From what we can gather in this video, a woman – inexplicably dressed like Princess Leia from Star Wars – parked her car on the side of the road at Yellowstone and got out to get a closer look at a bison grazing nearby. She didn’t follow the “stay 25 yards away” guideline, and immediately paid the price for it.
As she got closer to the wild animal, it understandably got frustrated. Once the bison reached its breaking point, it charged the woman, and she was not ready to make a run for it. Some other tourists (standing a safe distance away) got their camera out and captured it all as it played out… and even provided this commentary:
“S**t, oh she fell to the ground. Did you record it?”
Oh yeah. It was recording alright.
It’s funny that the horror movie trope of someone running from a monster and falling down actually rings true. You always wonder why the people in those films struggle to get a move on when their life depends on it. As you can clearly see, it happens in real life too:
“She got too close to the bison and he charged at her. This is her running away.”
Just an absolutely brutal faceplant.
It looks like she eventually made it back to her car, but it wasn’t without some battle scars. The woman hit the pavement hard, and social media didn’t exactly show a lot of sympathy for her. Many pointed out that she kind of got what was coming to her, and others poked fun at her wardrobe and also noticed that she was dressed like a character right out of Star Wars:
“The huge beast watching her as she runs into two lanes of highway traffic.”
“I watched this way too many times.”
“Princess Leia versus Darth Bison.”
“Karma is swift.”
“The way the bison watches her flail.”
“Dummies everywhere.”
“Thought she was going for a cartwheel.”
“Help me Ranger Obi Wan, you’re my only hope.”
I’m always here for a good outdoors-Star Wars crossover. This tourist could have really used the force to stay upright as she ran away from the bison she got way too close to.
