"Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged."
Stunned attendees helped wrest the man from Rushdie, who had fallen to the floor.
The Iranian government said in 1998 it would no longer back the fatwa, and Rushdie has lived relatively openly in recent years.
1/25 A general view shows UPMC Hamot Surgery Center, where novelist Salman Rushdie is receiving treatment after the attack, in Erie, Pennsylvania, U.S., August 12, 2022.
"I felt like we needed to have more protection there because Salman Rushdie is not a usual writer," said Anour Rahmani, an Algerian writer and human rights activist who was in the audience.