How (and why) an 85-year-old Charlotte man leaped on stage to thwart Rushdie attacker

Patched up with a bandage on his left thumb and a piece of blood-soaked gauze taped to his left forearm, a Charlotte man injured in the Aug. 12 attack on Salman Rushdie revealed to a Canadian television network last weekend that he may have played a potentially life-saving role.

Rushdie, the author of 1988’s “The Satanic Verses,” was preparing to speak at a retreat in New York when a man suddenly stormed the stage and began stabbing Rushdie repeatedly. Among those who rushed to try to subdue the attacker was John Moore of Charlotte.

In the interview with Natasha Fatah of CBC News Network, conducted the following evening, Moore identified himself as 85 years old.

“I scrambled onto the stage, and ran toward him,” said Moore, who was sitting four rows from the stage when the attacker, a Lebanese American man from New Jersey, started slashing at Rushdie. “At that time, I believe there were two or three other people that had reached the assailant, and were taking him down. And I grabbed at his leg, and then I heard someone say, ‘Control his hands. The knife.’

“And then I was pulling on his leg, to remove him from Mr. Rushdie, and in that process, I was also able ... to control his hand.”

Moore said before officers were able to place handcuffs on the man — who authorities have identified as 24-year-old Hadi Matar — he sustained an approximately two-inch cut on his thumb from the knife. He also said he had “a couple of bruises,” and when he lifted his left arm to show the news anchor, she gasped at the sight of the bloodstain on his bandage.

The moderator of the lecture, Henry Reese, 73, was also hurt while trying to hold down the attacker. His injuries were a bit more serious than Moore’s: Reese suffered deep bruising around his right eye and required several stitches to hold together a wound caused by Matar’s knife.

After the assailant had been fully restrained, Moore said, Rushdie wound up “sort of in my lap.”

“I think I was on my knees, and I kind of braced him and raised him up, and blood was everywhere,” the Charlottean continued. “And I had a handkerchief. So I reached in my pocket and applied my handkerchief to stop the bleeding, which was right above his right eye.”

Early updates from the 75-year-old author’s agent suggested he was likely to lose that eye; Rushdie also reportedly suffered severed nerves in an arm and damage to his liver. For the first two days after the attack, Rushdie was on a ventilator. He is now said to be on “the road to recovery.”

Asked by Fatah, the Canadian journalist, what made him risk his own life in that situation, Moore referenced his admiration for Rushdie’s work as well as his awareness of the fatwa and the $3 million bounty on Rushdie’s head. The author spent years in hiding after the publication of “The Satanic Verses” because Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had deemed the book blasphemous to Islam and issued the death edict against Rushdie.

“There were two things that I knew,” Moore said. “I knew that the assailant — in my judgment — was a terrorist, and that he was there to kill him. And without thinking I just bolted for the stage, and did what I could. I wish we could have done more, and I hope that he is going to be OK.”

When the Observer reached out to Moore on Friday morning seeking further thoughts, he replied via text message by saying, “I am declining interviews as I continue to process the horrendous attack.” He then added: “You may want to do a story on Chautauqua the 148 year old Institution.”

The Chautauqua Institution, where the free-speech hero Rushdie was to speak, is about 75 miles southwest of Buffalo in rural New York state, and refers to itself as “a community of artists, educators, thinkers, faith leaders and friends dedicated to exploring the best in humanity.” According to the Associated Press, attendees of Chautauqua’s summertime lecture series don’t have to go through any type of security checkpoint.

“Chautauqua,” Moore said in his CBC interview, “is a wonderful institution. And I hope that people will come there going forward to support their work in every way possible — because if we allow the voices like Mr. Rushdie to be silenced, then I believe our voices will be next.”

At the close of the televised interview, Fatah told Moore: “Salman Rushdie gets a lot of praise, deservedly so for his bravery.

“I think you deserve equal praise for what you did.”