Alaska News

Moose attack on well-known pilot halted by wife with shovel

The Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reported late Friday that well-known 82-year-old bush pilot George Murphy had been seriously injured in a moose attack early that morning, and that his wife Dorothea Taylor, 85, had driven the moose off by yelling and hitting it with a shovel.

The Frontiersman reported that the couple was walking their dogs at the Willow airport and the moose attacked as they were packing up to leave, stomping George repeatedly.

After driving off the moose off, Taylor went to Denali Air Service to call for help. Emergency crews responded, and George was taken via LifeMed helicopter to Anchorage in serious condition.

"You've heard the saying dynamite comes in small packages? The packages don't get much smaller or the explosions much bigger than Dorothea," Beth Taber, one of the couple's neighbors in Willow said.

Both Taylor and Murphy recounted their ordeal in great detail to the Anchorage Daily News in George's hospital room on Sunday.

Murphy is recovering from seven broken ribs and gashes to his head and left leg. After a day and night in intensive care, he has been officially upgraded to fair condition and is able to walk on his own. Murphy says he feels pretty good all things considered.

Neither he nor his wife say they bear ill-will toward the moose. It's been a hard winter, they figure.

Read the harrowing tale, here.

Craig Medred

Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2015.

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