85-Year-Old Woman Takes On Moose, Saves Husband

Weighing in at a mere 97 lb., Dorothea Taylor rescued her husband from an angry moose with nothing but a shovel

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By Bill Roth, Anchorage Daily News, via AP

Dorothea Taylor, 85, used a shovel to fight off a moose that was attacking her husband George Murphy, 82

Alaskan Dorothea Taylor, 85, and her husband George Murphy, 82, got into a tussle with a moose while taking their golden retrievers, Fellar and Tut, out for some fresh air last week, the Anchorage Daily News reports.

Taylor was waiting in their truck to avoid the Alaskan subzero temperatures while her husband collected the dogs, according to the Daily News. That’s when Murphy noticed the massive animal.

“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, a bush pilot from Willow, Alaska, told the Daily News.

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The moose charged at Murphy, stomping on him in the snow. Luckily, his 5-ft.-tall wife of about 40 years is an experienced hunter. While the moose continued to beat up her husband, Taylor grabbed a shovel from the truck and took swing after swing at the moose.

“When it turned and started to go off slowly, I hit it with everything I had,” she told the Daily News.

Finally, the moose started to retreat and Tut, one of their dogs, chased the animal off before it could do any more damage. Taylor made it out unscathed, but her husband is recovering from seven broken ribs and a 6-in. cut on his forehead.

“Well, we’ve helped each other out of problems before. This just happened to be the latest,” Taylor said.

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