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.

MONTANA NAVY VETERAN HAD JAW TORN OFF IN HORRIFYING GRIZZLY ATTACK, FAMILY SAYS

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.

GRIZZLY BEAR MAULS MONTANA HUNTER IN CUSTER GALLATIN NATIONAL FOREST

The attack happened south of Big Sky, a popular resort area about 55 miles north of Yellowstone National Park. The U.S. Forest Service implemented an emergency closure in the area while authorities looked for the bear.

The grizzly had not been found as of Monday, and no bears at all had been located in the area, according to Jacobsen.

The agency is still investigating, but believes the grizzly bear was protecting an animal carcass it had cached nearby.

"By all indications this was a defensive encounter," Jacobsen said.

The mauling happened a week after a female grizzly that fatally attacked a woman near West Yellowstone in July was killed by wildlife officials after the bear and a cub broke into a house near West Yellowstone. Officials say that bear had also mauled and injured a man in Idaho in 2020.

The White House's Monday claim about why President Biden did nOt commemorate 9/11 at one of the attack sites appears to be inaccurate.

Fox News' Peter Doocy reported Monday that the White House responded to his question on why Biden was in Hanoi, Vietnam, during the commemoration of the September 11, 2021 attacks on the U.S. by stating that presidents did not visit Pearl Harbor two decades after the event.

"The analogy that I was given is that, 22 years after Pearl Harbor, U.S. presidents were not still going to Hawaii," Doocy said.

WATCH: BIDEN CLAIMS WITHOUT EVIDENCE HE WAS AT GROUND ZERO ON DAY AFTER 9/11 ATTACKS

This claim, however, does not appear to hold up.

The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library posted on their X account on Dec. 7, 2020 that the late Democratic president visited the USS Arizona on the 22nd anniversary of the attack in 1963.

"Today the country marks the anniversary of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor," the presidential library's account wrote.

"In 1963, President Kennedy visited the USS Arizona Memorial and laid a wreath for those who perished in the surprise attack," the post read.

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.

Since 2001, most presidents have participated in Sept. 11 memorials in New York, the Pentagon or Shanksville, Pennsylvania — where a fourth plane went down amid the terror attacks. However, former Presidents George W. Bush and Obama each spent one anniversary commemorating the attacks from the White House, instead of visiting one of the three attack sites.

Monday marked the 22nd anniversary of the attacks on New York City and the Pentagon that took the lives of 2,977 Americans. Biden commemorated the attacks during a stop in Alaska on his return from Asia.

Biden claimed Monday, without evidence, that he stood at Ground Zero in New York City viewing the damage from the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks just one day later, despite records showing he was in Washington, D.C., that day.

"Ground Zero in New York — I remember standing there the next day and looking at the building. I felt like I was looking through the gates of Hell, it looked so devastating because the way you could — from where you could stand," Biden said during his speech at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, marking the devastating acts of terrorism 22 years ago.

BIDEN ENRAGES 9/11 FAMILIES BY NOT GOING TO MEMORIAL SITES ON ANNIVERSARY: ‘OPPOSITE’ OF NEVER FORGET

However, according to C-SPAN coverage of U.S. Senate proceedings on September 12, 2001, Biden was in Washington, D.C., and gave a speech on the floor of the Senate. Records show the Senate met in the morning, and a classified briefing was held for all senators that afternoon at 2:00 p.m. ET.

Records also show Biden participated in a joint resolution vote condemning the terrorist attacks later that afternoon. Biden was the Democratic manager of the resolution.

According to a report by The New York Post, Biden also contradicted his own claim in his autobiography detailing his actions after the attacks. Biden said in the book that he "headed back to the Capitol" on September 12, and made no mention of visiting Ground Zero that day.

The report also noted a Gannett News Wire report from Sept. 12, 2001 stating, "Delaware Sen. Joe Biden spent Wednesday exactly where he wanted — in the U.S. Senate."

Fox News Digital's Brandon Gillespie contributed reporting.