On Christmas Eve, a Louisiana hunter was the victim of a rare whitetail buck attack on his East Feliciana Parish property. Bobby Neams, of Clinton, Louisiana, nearly bled to death while being airlifted to Baton Rouge General Hospital after being rammed and gouged while attempting to approach a buck he shot earlier that morning.

The events began when the longtime hunter decided to slip off to his deer stand on the morning of December 24, 2013, with hopes of killing a massive buck that his trail cameras showed was in the area. Upon reaching his stand around 9am, Neams noticed the large buck standing toward the end of his shooting lane in some thick brush. Steadying his rifle for a shot, he pulled the trigger and watched the massive buck run out of sight.

Hearing the animal crash just beyond the shooting lane, Neams waited a moment then proceeded toward the area he’d last seen the buck. “When I got a few yards into the woods, I could see him laying there,” said the hunter. Noticing the buck still breathing with massive and seemingly lethal wound in his neck, Neams took a couple more steps towards the buck, and that’s when it happened; he charged.

“It happened so fast. I was twenty feet away when he lunged up from a squatted position, and within 1/10 of a second, he’d hit me,” recounted Neams. The heavy buck’s right main beam pierced Neams’ left thigh, entering above his knee and stopping under the skin just below his waist, tossing the shocked hunter onto his back eight feet away. At this point, a ground attack ensued.

“He was thrashing me on the ground like he was fighting another buck, said Neams. “All I could do was try to keep my hands on his horns to somewhat protect my face and chest.”

Somehow with both hands occupied trying to defend himself, Neams’ gun strap got entangled in the buck’s huge antlers. His rifle was still off of safety from when he’d first approached the buck just moments earlier. “I remembered thinking to myself, ‘Here’s my gun, all tangled up in this buck’s antlers, and I just might get shot during all of this!’” he recalled.

Fatigued from holding the buck back and with no one responding to his loud cries for help, Neams began to believe he was in his final moments on earth, when his spiritual side came forward. “I called out to God, ‘Please help me!’”

Call it fate or Divine Intervention, but the buck paused attacking long enough for Neams to get his composure. As the buck made his final charge towards the hunter, he was able to get both hands on the main beams and twist the buck’s head over all in one motion.

“He did a complete flip over me and landed on his back behind me with his antlers sticking in the dirt,” said Neams. The momentary disruption in the attack gave Neams enough time to hobble to his feet and put fifteen feet of distance between himself and the warring whitetail. What happened next could not be scripted: The buck rose to his feet, with Neams’ gun still entangled in his antlers. After pausing briefly look at the wounded hunter, he just ran away, carrying Neams’ gun along with him.

Drenched from head to toe with his own blood (as well as some of the buck’s blood), Neams gathered all his remaining strength and fought his way 400 yards back to his house. Soon thereafter, a helicopter airlifted him to the Baton Rouge General Medical Hospital where he underwent emergency surgery to repair his leg.

“I was lucky to live through this,” recounted Neams. “It was a terrifying experience, and I still have nightmares over it.”

While being operated on, Bobby’s son went back to the area to look for his father’s gun, finding it 20 yards along the trail the buck had fled. After making a sweep of the area, no signs of the buck remained. Over a month has passed since the incident, and with neighbors and trail cameras on the lookout, the buck has still not been found—dead or alive.