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The victim has a witness and the villain's body hair as evidence. But it's impossible for the victim to track down the villain and press charges. The villain is a moose.

When Jeremy Neldon and his partner, Chris Beanes, went hiking in Palmer on Aug. 9, Neldon was stomped by a moose.

The moose saw them and stopped, her ears laid back and her hair standing up on the hump.

Not knowing what to do, Neldon dealt with the moose the same way he would with a bear.

"We started walking back slowly, waved our arms and made noise," Neldon, 32, said.

Neldon's strategies didn't work. The moose charged and chased after them. Beanes jumped out of the moose's way into a bush of devil's club. But the moose ran Neldon over and galloped away with her calf.

With dirt in his mouth and moose hair on his back, Neldon struggled to stand up.

Two hikers called out to them, "did you see a moose?"

"Yes. She just ran me over," Neldon said.

Leaning on Beanes, Neldon trudged back to their car.

When they arrived at the Valley Hospital in Palmer, the emergency room was packed with people. But a nurse let Neldon in immediately after reading his intake form.

His answer to "why did you come to the hospital?" on the form was "run over by moose."

Doctors in the hospital didn't find Neldon suffered any broken bones or internal injuries, except bruises on his inner thigh.

Neldon said the hard objects in his backpack, such as a camera case and a pair of Barksa binoculars, saved his spine. His binoculars were broken into halves.

This wasn't the first time Neldon had a close call during his 10 years in Alaska. He was charged with electricity when lightning struck nearby on Mount Juneau eight years ago. He was bitten by a poisonous hobo spider on East Glacier Trail and could have lost his leg seven years ago. His friends nicknamed him "Lucky."

"It is applied even more now," Neldon said. "But these misfortunes won't deter me from exploring Alaska's wilderness."

•I-Chun Che can be reached at ichun.che@juneauempire.com.