Montana man who was mauled by a grizzly bear is doing well but has long recovery ahead, family says

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SALT LAKE CITY — A Montana man who was mauled by a grizzly bear that bit off his lower jaw is doing well at a hospital in Salt Lake City but has a long recovery ahead, his family said Monday.

Rudy Noorlander, the owner of a snowmobile and all-terrain vehicle rental business in Big Sky, “is projected to be in the hospital for surgeries until October” after the attack last Friday, his daughter KateLynn Davis said via Facebook.

Noorlander was helping two hunters who rented ATVs from his business as they tried to find a deer they had shot in southwestern Montana, according to Davis.

They tracked a deer that wasn’t the one the hunters shot, and Noorlander spotted a smaller grizzly. He was pulling out his gun to try to scare it away when a larger bear attacked him, Davis wrote.

Noorlander’s gun misfired and he didn’t have time to grab his bear spray from his backpack, so he tried to punch the animal “in hopes of slowing it down,” according to Davis.

“Unfortunately it did not, and after the first punch the grizzly was on top of Rudy,” Davis wrote on a GoFundMe page. “The grizzly left a large scratch down his right chest, bit his arms, legs, and to top it all off, gave him as what Rudy describes as the most disgusting French kiss of his life before biting down and tearing off his lower jaw.”

One of the two hunters shot at the bear and it left the area, said Morgan Jacobsen, a spokesperson for Montana’s wildlife department.

Gallatin County Sheriff Search and Rescue team members airlifted Noorlander out of the area and a medical helicopter flew him to the hospital in nearby Bozeman, the sheriff’s office said. After being stabilized, Noorlander was flown to the University of Utah Hospital for further treatment, Davis said.

BY AMY BETH HANSON