ANCHORAGE, Alaska — An agitated moose ran down and stomped a well-known pilot from Willow, Alaska, but he was saved when his wife grabbed a shovel from their pickup truck and whacked the animal until it backed off.

George Murphy, 82, and his wife, Dorothea Taylor, 85, told the story of their moose encounter Sunday from Murphy’s hospital room in Anchorage, where he is recovering from gashes to his head and left leg as well as seven broken ribs.

Additional Photos

Dorothea Taylor, left, used a shovel to stop a moose from attacking her husband, George Murphy, right, in Willow, Alaska. Murphy is recovering in an Anchorage hospital. Bill Roth/McClatchy Newspapers

They were at the Willow Airport around 10:30 a.m. Friday running their golden retrievers as they do almost every day. They drive along the access road in their truck and let the dogs, Fellar and King Tut, run on ahead. When it came time to round up the dogs, Murphy told Taylor she could wait in the truck.

Murphy was hiking back to the truck with Fellar when he saw the moose up the road. It was big, and stressed.

“He was way off. Jeez, he spotted me and he started to come right after me. So I was trying to get to the truck. But I didn’t make it,” Murphy said.

At the airport, there were no trees to duck behind. Murphy dived into the deep snow for protection. And the moose came at him.

“He started to stomp. Then he turned around and stomped again. And there was nothing I could do. I was afraid he was going to kill me.”

From inside the truck, Taylor heard the dogs barking in alarm and jumped out to investigate. At 5 feet tall and 97 pounds, she is tiny but tough. Years ago, she shot and killed a trophy-size brown bear on Kodiak Island.

She saw the moose rear up and strike at something on the ground with its front hooves. She couldn’t see her husband in the snow, and didn’t know that the moose was stomping him.

Tut was at the moose’s rear, barking and trying to nip its back legs. Fellar was standing near the moose’s front, barking like crazy, too. “I thought he was trying to kill Fellar, the old dog,” Taylor said.

Still unaware of the danger her husband was in, she yelled for him to come help her with the dogs. On instinct, she ran to where the action was. “And the moose started after me.”

Taylor raced back to the truck but instead of jumping in for safety, she released the tailgate and grabbed a big grain shovel that they keep on hand to dig out if the truck gets stuck.

She walked back to the moose, making a racket with the shovel on the road, where the snow was hard-packed. She kept shouting for her husband to get over there and help.

Taylor took a swing at the moose and it backed off a little, but then it reared up and stomped its target again.

“So I kept hitting it some more,” Taylor said. She swung mainly at the rump but said she got in at least one good lick to the head. Finally, the moose turned away.

“When it turned and started to go off slowly, I hit it with everything I had,” she said. Tut, the younger dog, took over and chased the moose away.

“Then I saw it wasn’t Fellar the moose was after at all. He was striking over the top of Fellar, to get George.”

Her husband was conscious and said he may have broken ribs. Blood was spurting out of a deep crack in his head.

She couldn’t get her husband up, so she got the dogs in the truck and then ran for help.

Murphy, a retired state construction engineer, flew for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race for nearly three decades. He once was the chief pilot for the race. He’s well known among both mushers and pilots as well as the news crews he carried to cover the race.

He and Taylor, a retired teacher, are both familiar with wild animals. They filled their freezer with moose and caribou until they gave up hunting a couple of years back. They’ve been married some 40 years.

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