Musher Bridgett Watkins couldn't believe what she was seeing: A moose charging at her dogs — undeterred by her yelling and even her gun. Listen to Watkins recount what happened next:
Musher Bridgett Watkins’ story of a harrowing moose attack on her dog team made headlines a few weeks ago. Watkins is an emergency room nurse and the daughter of Allen Moore and the stepdaughter of Aliy Zirkle, both top Iditarod finishers.She says anxiety and from the moose attack still lingers. She recently told the story about what happened out on the trail — and how she’s making sense of it — while driving home from a shift at the ER in Fairbanks to her kennel in Salcha.
For me, this is like a worst-case scenario to have to kill a moose. I just aimed and I took a deep breath. And I remember saying to myself, “Breathe, you have to breathe, take a deep breath.” At this point, I’m about to kill him. I want him to die. I wasn’t fearful that we were out of hope at that point. I just thought I’m going to get this gun unjammed and I’m going to shoot him dead.
You have to make all these split-second, instant decisions like that. I thought, “If I cut them off, I’m never going to find them again. But they may live.” I thought this was better than death regardless. I said to my friend, “There is no plan B. He is going to kill us.” If he takes one step, he’s on top of us. I told her, “You have to keep this machine between us and him, don’t step off the trail because you’ll sink through the deep snow.
This is like the most horrific thing. He’d get the same look every single time before he trampled. He’d do this head-shaking thing where he turned his head where his eyeball could look down at the dogs because he’s overtop of them. He looked down at them, and then he would just jump with both feet and then just start jumping on them.
What I had found out since then is that within a five mile radius of where I was running in that week alone, five moose have been killed by wolves. Five. I texted my friend who has a cabin out on the Salcha River. Eventually, he came from the opposite direction. And so he came around the corner and when he got there and in front of him was the moose, my dog team and then us.
Eventually, we took off running down the trail toward them but that was probably the most terrifying moment: that moment that I finally could get back to my team. And it hit me, like, they may all be dead. I know what gruesome scenes look like from working in the ER. All of that kind of flooded into my head.
Except for one. I had one dog and she’s my main lead dog. She never left my side. I didn’t realize this at the moment and I even tripped on her because she literally was right under my feet to the point of when we took off running and jumped over that hill and laid on our belly, she ran with me, and she laid beside me. It was the most amazing thing I have ever experienced in my life. Her name is Razz.
At this point, all those people I had sent those SOS texts to were showing up on the trail. And they were coming, they had snowmachines, and they had fled in dog kennels. So the other dogs that were injured that I couldn’t carry, they were bringing them in that way and the vets were waiting on it. But it was the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced going into that vet.
People kept asking me if I was going to run the Iditarod. For the first few days that we were in and out of surgery and at the vet, the last thing I could think about was Iditarod.