Navy Veteran Rudy Noorlander squared up with an aggressive grizzly bear in Montana and lived to tell about it.
On September 8th Noorlander, who owns Alpine Adventures, was helping a hunting group track a deer they’d shot in Montana. During the tracking expedition he spotted a small bear. He immediately pulled out his gun to scare the small bear away, but it wasn’t moments later a much bigger bear appeared and began mauling him.
According to his sister, he had only one second to fire his gun from the time the large grizzly began charging him. The gun reportedly misfired, and just like that the grizzly was on top of him.
It was at that point that Noorlander began punching the bear, feeling like it was his only hope of slowing it down.
Noorlander’s daughter explained the terrifying incident on a GoFundMe page she created to help cover the costs of her father’s hefty medical expenses from the incident.
“My father is the bravest and strongest man I know,” Davis wrote. “As the bear lunged the only thing Rudy could do was punch the bear in hopes of slowing it down. … The grizzly left a large scratch down his right chest, bit his arms, legs, and to top it all off, gave him what Rudy describes as the most disgusting french kiss of his life before biting down and tearing off his lower jaw.”
Luckily, Noorlander was not alone, and the hunters he was with were able to scare the Grizzly away and call for help. However it took two hours for the helicopter to arrive so that he could be rushed to Bozeman Deaconess. Noorlander stayed conscious during the entire time he was waiting for the helicopters to arrive. It was an amazing feat of strength that he didn’t pass out from blood loss, pain or fear.
After an initial surgery, Noorlander was transferred to the University of Utah Hospital where he was in stable condition.
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