A woman is recovering after she was kicked in the head by a sneaky moose in Alaska in a surprise attack that was all caught on video.
Tracy Hansen was walking her dog last week when she felt something from behind whack her across the head.
"I thought someone had not been paying attention and hit me with a bike or something," Hansen told KTUU. "I had put my hands up to my head, and I'm like, 'I'm bleeding.'"
While she and her dog had passed a moose a short time earlier, Hansen still wasn't sure what had struck her.
"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 told the news station.
Fortunately, Anchorage resident Kate Timmons – who was driving by with her family – saw the whole thing unfold. She watched as the moose sneaked up on its unsuspecting victim, and even tried warning her as the moose got close.
"My husband was able to help pull her over the snow bank, so we could get her in the truck with her dog and kind of get her out of the way," Timmons told KTUU. "It definitely seemed unprovoked from our standpoint, and it happened so fast."
Timmons wondered if the moose would have continued to attack Hansen if they weren't there, adding that the snowbanks were so tall, it would have been nearly impossible for a passing car to see Hansen lying on the sidewalk.
Hansen suffered a head injury that required staples, along with bruising throughout her body. Her dog was not injured.
Despite the incident, Hansen said she has no plans to stop going on daily walks with her dog along the same path.
"We'll be back on our normal walks," she told KTUU. "The moose won't stop that."
Moose are not normally aggressive; however, they can become aggressive when they are harassed by people, dogs, and traffic, or when hungry and tired, especially in winter when they must walk through deep snow, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Moose also view dogs as enemies and will sometimes go out of their way to kick at one, even if the dog is on a leash or in a fenced yard, the department added. While moose are generally perceived to be less dangerous than bears, more people in Alaska are injured by moose than by bears each year.
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