'Pool of blood under his body': witnesses recount attack on Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie suffered multiple stab wounds, including one to the right side of his neck, and was lying in a pool of blood under his body after he was attacked at an event in New York on Friday, according to a doctor who helped the Mumbai-born author following the brutal assault.

Rushdie was attacked and stabbed in the neck on Friday while onstage in Chautauqua in Western New York, New York Police said.

"Rita Landman, an endocrinologist who was in the audience, walked on stage to offer assistance after the talk. She said that Mr. Rushdie had multiple stab wounds, including one to the right side of his neck, and that there was a pool of blood under his body. But she said he appeared to be alive and was not receiving CPR,” The New York Times reported.

Cincininatti resident Valerie Haskell described medics rushing to the scene after writer Salman Rushdie was stabbed by an audience member before a lecture in western New York on Friday.

"People jumped onto the stage from the audience to the point where there were probably 20 people on stage pulling the attacker off and keeping him contained," she said.

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"They called for medics at that point and there happened to be at least four physicians in the audience who were able to come up on stage and help until the live squad arrived," she added.

Haskell's husband, Martin, was one of the physicians in the crowd who came to help, she said.

Charlie Savenor was in the audience and witnessed a man storm the stage Friday at the Chautauqua Institution and stab Rushdie as he was being introduced.

"Within 15 seconds, someone jumped onto the stage and began to beat him," Savenor said. "I can tell you that the the pounding that he took on that stage has reverberated among the people who were there in attendance among this really quaint, you know, community and is now reverberating, unfortunately, throughout the country and throughout the world."

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