As Mandi McDonald fights for life in The Alfred hospital – her two children at her side as they grieve for their father – the family's tight-knit community back home has got to work.

News of the freak deer attack that killed father Paul McDonald, 46, and left his wife Ms McDonald, 45, with critical injuries on Wednesday shocked the world, but nowhere more than the tiny Victorian community of Moyhu, where it appears nearly all of its several hundred residents consider the family an extension of their own.

Paul and Mandi McDonald were attacked by their pet deer at their property in Moyhu, near Wangaratta, on Wednesday morning. Credit:Mandi McDonald/ Facebook

Up the road about 25 kilometres at the family's nursery in Wangaratta, Linga-A-While, friends and strangers have dropped in to buy plants in support of the business. Others have volunteered to work free shifts until the boss was able to return to duties.

Cindy Hogan is one of Ms McDonald's closest friends. Her daughters consider Ms McDonald a second mum.