A Pennsylvania man narrowly survived a vicious attack by a black bear – in his own home.

Rich Moyer let his dog out the back door of his house in Newport around 3 a.m. Monday as he got ready for work, he told the media outside his home.

Shortly afterwards, the dog started howling. Moyer opened the back door and the half pit bull, half husky mutt darted in with the big black bear in hot pursuit.

“Right on her tail was the bear,” Moyer told reporters, according to CBS 21 News.

The bear then turned her attention to Moyer. The 6-foot, 6-inch man was knocked to the ground and quickly found himself wrestling with the animal in his own living room.

Moyer fought to get the bear out the same door he’d come in through. During the fight, his wife, Angela, came downstairs and was knocked outside onto the patio.

The bear got on top of her. Meyer then fought to save his wife, and that’s when the worst of the attack happened.

“I literally dove in to take that bear off of her, and in doing that then, that’s when the bear tried to make a meal out of me, and started tearing my head apart,” Moyer said.

The bear chomped into the Pennsylvania man’s cranium, ripping the flesh mostly from the back of his head. He only suffered minor injuries on his face.

It took 70 stitches and staples to patch his head together, he said. His wife suffered only a few wounds. The couple’s 10-year-old son was in the house at the time, but remained upstairs and was unharmed.

“It was a nightmare,” Moyer said. “I’m 6′ 6″, 300 pounds. The doctor said if I was average size, I’d probably be dead.”

Game Commission spokesman Jerry Feaser said Pennsylvania has not experienced a fatality from a black bear in more than a century.

“It is our suspicion at this point that it was likely a female defending its cubs, because a bear encountering a dog is more likely to run away,” Feaser said. “Black bears going into a home are an extremely rare situation.”

A live trap was set up at the Moyer home in case the bear returns.

(Source: NY Daily News)