ANCHORAGE, Alaska ā So this moose walks into a medical building...
While that could be a setup to a bad joke, it actually happened in Anchorage on Thursday.
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A young moose trudging through the snow looking for a meal spotted green plants in the lobby of a medical building in the Providence Alaska Health Park and decided to drop in for a dose of greenery.
The ingenious ā or lucky ā moose triggered the sensors on the automatic doors to the building that houses the hospitalās cancer center and other medical offices, said Randy Hughes, the hospitalās director of security.
āWe received a call from one of our tenants advising that a moose had just walked into the building,ā Hughes said.
Hughes believes itās the same moose that has been hanging around campus. And even though moose are commonplace in Alaska, they made an announcement over the intercom of the mooseās presence out of safety concerns.
āBut it seemed like it was a magnet for people to come and see it,ā he said. āItās not every day you get a moose walking into a building, so everybody was excited to take pictures and stuff like that.ā
On one video posted on social media, a woman wearing a mask and dressed in scrubs can be heard saying, āThatās crazy,ā as she walked by the moose, snapping a photo with her phone.
The moose was too preoccupied eating the office plants to notice the stir he was causing.
Security officers formed a semicircle to corral the moose and shoo it out the door. One officer even grabbed a piece of the plant the moose had been eating and tried to lure it out.
āFinally, I think it had enough of everybody watching him, watching him eat,ā Hughes said.
The moose vacated the building but hung around in the buildingās semicircular drive for a bit before heading to the other side of the building to bed down for an afternoon.
This wasnāt the first time a moose went inside one of the hospital complexās buildings, and bears have tried to get into the emergency room before.
Hughes said thereās ānever a dull moment here at the hospital.ā