Photos: Moose stops by Alaska hospital for checkup

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A moose entered Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage on Feb. 19, 2012. Doctors refused to do a checkup on the moose.

It's probably the last thing hospital-goers expected to see Sunday on their way into a hospital in Alaska's largest city: a moose standing in the hallway.

No, not a stuffed or mounted moose. This particular moose was a live ungulate on the move.

We've theorized it became bored with the bushes it'd been dining on and moseyed its way toward the Subway sandwich shop just one floor below at Anchorage's Providence Alaska Medical Center. Alaska Dispatch writer Craig Medred doubts this theory and suspects it's more likely the moose drifted through the hospital doors while in the middle of a dining binge, chomping on nearby bushes, following the architecture of the building until, voila -- it had made its way inside.

It's a first for the hospital, said Ginger Houghton, a community relations specialist at Providence. From time to time, moose do show up inside the parking garage, but never before had she heard of one making its way inside the building.

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