Montana man’s lower jaw was bit off by a grizzly bear, and weeks later, he will return home from the hospital

Montana – Following five weeks in a Utah hospital due to a grizzly bear mauling him and biting off the front of his lower jaw, a Montana man is ready to go home, a doctor and his family announced at a news conference on Friday.

Rudy Noorlander, who wrote down his answers to most queries at the University of Utah hospital on a whiteboard, is excited about a root beer float, spending time outside again, and possibly even going to see his favorite Montana State Bobcats play the Montana Grizzlies in football rivalry next month.

“And he’s developed a whole new hatred toward the University of Montana,” his daughter Katelynn Noorlander Davis said, referring to the team’s mascot.

Because he wanted to publish a book and tell the story himself, Noorlander declined to answer any questions regarding the attack. Additionally, he would like Cole Hauser, an actor from the television show “Yellowstone,” to portray his part in the film version.

During the press conference, Noorlander’s adult daughters, Ashley Noorlander and Davis, sat on either side of him and related the highs and lows of the previous five weeks.

Davis read a letter her father had written to express his gratitude for all of the love, support, prayers, and compassion he has gotten from both friends and complete strangers.

“I truly feel blessed to be surrounded by such amazing people,” Davis said, reading her father’s statement. “I also want to say that the first root beer float is going to taste so amazing and soon I’m going to be a free-range chicken and won’t be hooked up to anything.”

The family is hoping that Monday will be possible for him to come home.

On September 8, after accompanying two others in search of a deer they had shot and injured, Noorlander was ambushed by a grizzly bear. Reports at the time stated that the bear approached him so swiftly that he was unable to use bear spray and that his rifle misfired.

During a 10-hour procedure on September 28, Noorlander’s lower lip and jaw were rebuilt using a skin that had been donated and a piece of his lower thigh bone, according to McCrary. That operation included dental implants for him as well.

When McCrary saw Noorlander the day after the incident, she claimed she was struck by his will to live.

“He was very adamant that he was going to fight this thing and get through it. And at that point, he was still on a ventilator and had a chest tube and lots of lines everywhere,” McCrary said.

Noorlander stated, “I will win Round 2,” with the bear, displaying his sense of humor, after stating that his life and family had inspired him to keep fighting.

“Only by the hands of God am I here,” Noorlander wrote. “Believe it or not, I believe that this attack was an answer to my prayers and that potentially it could help somebody else going through something similar.”

In addition, he expressed his relief that it was him and not the four elderly hikers he had seen that day on the same trail.

Doctors are trying to get Noorlander ready to eat without running the danger of infection because he still has a little wound beneath his chin that needs to heal, according to McCrary.

“And maybe if he’s really lucky, we’ll have a root beer float waiting for you in the room,” she told Noorlander.