SPOKANE, Wash. - A Spokane family got a surprise arrival when a moose calf fell through a basement window and into a bedroom.

Video: Baby moose falls into Spokane basement

Larger screen

“It's the first time this happened in my career that we have had one that actually ended up inside a home," said Mike Wharton, Dept. of Fish and Wildlife.

 Nobody knows what the moose was doing there, but homeowner Tony Mantese says he was playing a game of chase with a neighborhood dog right before he was found in the Mantese basement.

“He was running all through the neighborhood and I saw him going through the back yard and heard a crash,” he said.

Wildlife officers managed to shoot a tranquilizer dart into the moose's rump, then used a tarp to haul the 375-pound baby up a narrow stairway.

The story has a happy ending. Officers were later able to track down the calf's mother and sibling and trucked the reunited family out near Mount Spokane for release. The area has gotten more than 6 feet of snow in the past three weeks.