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Marc Johnson had seen bears before, but not this close.

At approximately 6 a.m. Johnson emerged from the woods near his home on Strawberry Road in Kenai with his eight-week old puppy, Sandler, in tow when he came upon a brown bear sow and her cubs.

"I did what people recommend you don't do," he said. "I panicked."

Johnson dropped Sandler's leash, told the puppy to make a run for it and was attacked from behind. The force of the bear's blow knocked him to the ground. The sow clawed the back of his scalp, his left armpit and buttock before it ran off into the woods with her cubs. Once he was sure the bear was gone, Johnson ran for home.

"I ran part of the way before I realized how sore I was," he said. "When I got home I yelled and then I laid down in the kitchen in a pool of blood. My 16-year-old daughter helped get towels and called for her grandpa to come over and get (me) to the hospital."

Johnson went through surgery at Central Peninsula Hospital Tuesday where his wounds were cleaned and stitched up. Johnson's currently on antibiotics and as of Tuesday evening, he was eating dinner and hoping to be discharged from the hospital and be back to work at the Tesoro plant today.

"I'd like to go back to work tomorrow," he said. "I work in an office at Tesoro and I'm thinking it's gotta hurt. If I could, I'd be back tomorrow."

Larry Lewis, a wildlife technician with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's Soldotna office, said Johnson scared off some bears who were nosing through compost buckets on his front porch at approximatley 4:30 a.m., likely the same sow and her cubs.

"I think we could safely assume it was probably the same bears," he said, adding that the food particles were found where the bears had been pushing on Johnson's front door.

Lewis and Sgt. Paul McConnell with the Alaska Wildlife Troopers investigated the scene of the incident, but failed to locate the bears. Lewis said the incident was a classic case of a surprise encounter, and the bear was acting in defense, but officials would have destroyed the bears had they been found.

"Of all the maulings I've investigated I've yet to find the animal in the area," he said. "They generally get out of there."

McConnell said it's probable that this sow and her offspring are the same bears that have been seen in the Jim Dahler Road and Mackey Lake area north of the Sterling Highway. Now they're staying north of the Kenai Spur Highway.

"We've had calls over at Mackey Lake," he said. "(The bears) got into a barn and killed 35 chickens. We've gotten other calls where they've gotten in trash or been on peoples' porches."

McConnell said bears are going to be hungry and if they find a food source, they're more likely to come back. It's also against the law to leave food or garbage out in such a way that it attracts bears. There's not a lot of food for bears to find, McConnell said, so things like garbage and bird feeders lure them to areas where people live.

Johnson said Lewis told him that his pet rabbits can lure bears to his property.

"My kids and their grandparents went this afternoon and picked up the rabbit hutch to get it away from our house," he said. "And I'm not going to let my puppy run around free for a while."

Strawberry Road is rife with bear issues, Lewis said, and troopers and Kenai police are often called out there. Despite the number of encounters, people are complacent, he said.

"I'm really amazed, people will actually argue with me about it," he said. "My advice is do not wait until you have a problem. This (incident) clearly illustrates the increased risk that comes with carelessness or complacency. These animals were in that area. I wouldn't have said this wouldn't happen otherwise, but I do feel this was a factor."

Johnson said he feels tremendously lucky to be alive and grateful that he's not in much pain. For the most part any encounter Johnson's had with a bear has been uneventful, even when he was at Russian River Falls last summer, but he'll think twice before running out in the woods.

"I live to run and I love the woods, so I'm going to re-think my whole approach to safety now. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do, but I'd be lying if I said I'm never going to run on a trail again," he said, adding that the important thing is for his neighbors to be aware that bears are roaming the area. "It's pretty scary. It's important for the community to understand there's bears in the neighborhood so they can be safe and do the right thing as far as keeping garbage and food inside."

Jessica Cejnar can be reached at jessica.cejnar@peninsulaclarion.com.