(NEWSnet/AP) — A Montana man who was mauled by a grizzly bear is doing well at a hospital in Salt Lake City, but has a long recovery ahead, his family said Monday.

Rudy Noorlander, owner of a snowmobile and all-terrain vehicle rental business in Big Sky, is projected to be in the hospital for surgery sessions until October, his daughter KateLynn Davis said via Facebook.

The attack occurred Sept. 8. Noorlander was helping two hunters who had rented ATVs 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 taking out his gun to try to scare it away when a larger bear attacked him, Davis wrote. Noorlander’s gun misfired. He did not have time to grab 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 bear bit and tore off Noorlander's jaw. He also suffered a large scratch on his chest and had bites on his arms and legs, she said.

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 from 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.

As of Monday, the grizzly had not been found as of Monday, and no bears of any kind had been located in the area, according to Jacobsen. The agency believes the grizzly was protecting an animal carcass it had stored nearby.