( CNN ) -- A woman gored by a bison at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming said she is happy to be alive days after the attack . `` I thought it was the end , '' Cathy Hayes told CNN by phone late Wednesday . Hayes said she was vacationing in Yellowstone on Monday with her husband and a friend . The group was driving through the park when they spotted a bison . `` My friend is from California , and had never seen a bison before , '' she said . `` So we pulled over and went to get a closer look . '' Minutes later , the bison attacked . And it was all caught on tape . `` So we 're here in the park and there 's a buffalo , and he 's just wandering across the road , '' she says in the footage . Hayes , a native of Farr West , Utah , says they were about 30 feet away from the bison when her friend decided to get closer . `` There was another group in front of us , and I never noticed it before looking at the video on my small camera , but you can see a stick fly off the back of the bison , '' she said . `` It looks like it came from the group that was in front of him . Before that , the bison was just chillin . ' '' In the video shot from Hayes ' perspective , her friend falls as he runs away from the charging bison . At that point , she says , the bison turned its attention to her . Hayes crouched behind a tree to protect herself , but it was n't enough . `` There was a pause when I could tell that he was backing up and getting ready to ram the tree again , '' Hayes said . `` I thought , 'He wo n't ram the car , ' so I made a run for it . You can probably see in the video when he got me and flung me up in the air . '' Hayes ' husband was in their car when the attack happened , and was able to scare the bison off by making loud noises . `` He was going to throw his cell phone at it , but it took off . It was gone as quick as it came , '' she said . Luckily , Hayes did not suffer life-threatening injures , but said she is still in a lot of pain . Her knee was swollen to the size of a football , and she had minor cuts and scrapes throughout her leg . Her friend broke his shoulder when he tripped and fell . But for the Utah teacher , it could have been worse . `` I was waiting for black . I thought I was going to die , '' Hayes said . Signs throughout Yellowstone warn visitors to not get close to wildlife .
Attack happened at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming . The attack was the deadliest on a U.S. park since an armed man killed nine people and wounded six others during a screening of Batman Begins last year. `` He got me and flung me up in the air , '' she says .