• Video shows security guards rushing to Salman Rushdie's side moments after he was attacked. 
  • New York State Police said Rushdie was stabbed in the neck after a man rushed on stage and attacked him. 
  • New York Governor Kathy Hochul said Rushdie is alive and is being treated in an area hospital. 

Video shared by a witness shows the moments seconds after famed author Salman Rushdie was stabbed at a lecture in New York.

Rabbi Charles Savenor, executive director of Civic Spirit, posted a video on Twitter showing security and others rushing to Salman Rushdie's aid after he was stabbed just before giving a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York.  

New York State Police said Rushdie was stabbed in the neck Friday. He was taken to an area hospital on a helicopter, they said, and his condition was not immediately known. 

About two hours after the attack, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said that Rushdie is alive, and that a police officer "stood up and saved his life," ABC News correspondent Aaron Katersky reported. 

"It happened very quickly," Savenor told Insider of the attack. "It was a man who ran very fast. All I really saw was the guy's back, he jumped onto the stage and began to beat him. I think he fell off the chair. The guy was pounding him on the chair. It was really jarring."

Savenor said security was on the stage "rather quickly" and soon after the police showed up. 

"I think people were in shock," Savenor said. "I think people were shocked, surprised, and dismayed."

Chautauqua Institution did not provide a comment when contacted by Insider. 

Rushdie has faced numerous death threats since publishing his fourth novel "The Satanic Verses" in 1988. 

In 1989, Iranian cleric Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie's assassination.

Khomeini claimed the book was "against Islam, the Prophet, and the Koran."

Rushdie went into hiding for a decade, hunkering down in London's billionaire row for many years, Insider previously reported. The home was fitted with triple-glazed, bulletproof glass, a network of security cameras, enhanced outer walls, and room for six live-in police officers.

Iran has since distanced itself from Khomeini's order. In 1999 Rushdie came out of hiding after Iran's foreign ministry assured Britain they wouldn't carry out the threats. 

But, in 2012, an Iranian religious foundation raised the bounty for killing Rushdie to $3.3 million.

And current Iranian ruler Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei tweeted about the order in 2019 saying the assassination order was "irrevocable."

Read the original article on Insider