Salman Rushdie in 1st interview about nearly-fatal knife attack: 'I feel more the presence of death'

Salman Rushdie survived the knife attack, which lasted nearly 30 seconds and damaged his liver and severed the nerves in an arm and an eye.

"I mean, I certainly don’t feel that some hand reached down from the sky and guarded me, but I do think something happened which wasn’t supposed to happen," Rushdie clarified. "I have no explanation for it."  Peter Aitken is a Fox News Digital reporter with a focus on national and global news. 

Rushdie, 76, was stabbed on stage at the Chautauqua Institution before he was slated to give a lecture. Emergency responders airlifted him to a hospital in northwestern Pennsylvania, and he underwent surgery.