Watch your back.
No, seriously. You’ve got to watch your back when you are walking around areas with wildlife. You should generally never turn around and let a wild animal out of your direct line of sight if you are in close quarters with them. These people walking around Estes Park in Colorado apparently didn’t know that.
They got up close and personal with a sizable elk (or the elk got up close with them) and things got tense, to say the least. A fully grown elk can weigh over 1,000 pounds, and their sharp antlers are an excellent weapon of choice. All that weight behind some head-mounted puncturing tools can easily do some damage, though generally an elk’s antlers are used to defend themselves.
It’s a good a thing this wild animal was somewhat polite, because otherwise this could have been a horrific story about a backstabbing elk. Instead, it’s just about an elk that could be categorized as a “back-poker.” Though it appears no one was injured in this incident, it doesn’t make it any less scary.