President Wilford Woodruff and Luke Johnson's narrow escape from a buffalo herd

While hunting buffalo near the foothills of the Salt Lake Valley, President Wilford Woodruff and Luke Johnson were cornered by a stampeding herd of several thousand. They were nearly trampled, but the animals suddenly veered aside just before reaching them, sparing their lives.

Fuller account of this event (in the witness’s own words):

While in the valley of the Great Salt Lake, in the year 1848, I went out on a buffalo hunt in company with Luke Johnson. We were on foot, and while hunting near the foothills, we were suddenly surprised by a herd of several thousand buffalo, which were stampeding towards us. We were in a position where it seemed that we must be trampled to death. We were in the open, and there was no place of safety for us. We stood our ground, and as the herd came thundering on, we shouted and gesticulated in the hope of turning them aside. Brother Johnson fired his rifle into the herd, but it had no effect. On they came, a solid mass of living, moving, maddened animals. It seemed as though our time had come. But just as they reached us, the herd, as if by some unseen power, divided, and passed on either side of us, leaving us unharmed. We were left standing in the midst of the dust and the noise, while the great herd swept by, and we were filled with gratitude to God for our miraculous preservation.