A woman in Anchorage, Alaska, was out walking her dog on their usual route like any other day when she was charged from behind and kicked in the head by a moose on Thursday.
The shocking moment was caught on video by a passing driver who shouted to warn the unsuspecting dog-walker. Tracy Hansen didn’t hear the shouts, nor did she notice the large moose barrelling down the path behind her and was initially confused when she was knocked to the ground.
“I thought someone had not been paying attention and hit me with a bike or something,” Hansen told KTUU, a local NBC affiliate in Anchorage. “I had put my hands up to my head, and I’m like, ‘I’m bleeding.'”
Hansen looked up and saw the moose but still couldn’t believe the animal had been the one to knock her down. She and her dog, Gunner, had passed the moose earlier on their walk.
“Knowing that the moose had been somewhere behind me and now, here this moose is in front of me, and I’m like, ‘Was that the moose?'” Hansen said.
Hansen may never have known for certain if not for another Anchorage local, Kate Timmons, capturing the incident on camera.
Timmons was in a car with her family when she started filming the moose loping down the sidewalk. As the moose picked up speed, Timmons saw a person walking on the path and yelled, “Watch out! Watch out!”
The moose barrelled towards Hansen, raised its front leg and slammed its hoof into her head. Hansen immediately fell to the ground and disappeared out of view of the camera behind a snowbank.
After kicking the dog walker, the moose slowed down and continued walking down the road. Timmons and her family followed the moose a few seconds longer, honking their horn and yelling to try and get the large animal out of the area.
Timmons told KTUU that her husband was able to pull the injured Hansen over the snowbank and into their truck with her dog.
“It definitely seemed unprovoked from our standpoint and it happened so fast. It was just like, a matter of getting her out of the situation, getting her help, making sure, you know, my big thing was that she didn’t have a head trauma, that there wasn’t a bleed or something.”
Hansen is thankful that Timmons and her family were there when she needed help.
“Kate and I were discussing that the Lord put her in the right place, at the right time to be able to help,” Hansen said.
Hansen suffered head injuries from the Feb. 16 attack and said she is still experiencing headaches and bruising. She told KTUU she required staples for her head wounds.
But Hansen said the terrifying encounter won’t discourage her from going on her daily walks with Gunner. As of Monday, she’s already back out on the trail.
“We’ll be back on our normal walks,” she said. “The moose won’t stop that.”
Comments