Acclaimed author Salman Rushdie will spend the rest of his life recovering from the injuries he suffered in a savage knife attack on Aug. 12 at the Chautauqua Institution in New York state.

The fact that he survived at all is due in large part to the work of a skilled firefighter and paramedic from Greater Cleveland's Italian American community. University Heights Fire Captain Peter Pucella had just arrived at the Chautauqua amphitheater when Rushdie, 75, who was being introduced for a program on free speech, was attacked by a man who rushed the stage. "Just as we entered, I heard an audible gasp," he said. "People were already jumping on stage."

Pucella also ran to the stage, where a "pile of guys" was still fighting to subdue the knife-wielding assailant and began to treat a man who was bleeding from a slashed eyebrow. That man turned out to be program moderator Henry Reese, co-founder of a nonprofit that aids exiled writers, who had just introduced Rushdie.

"I thought he was Rushdie," Pucella said. "I didn't know what either one of them looked like, and I didn't know how many victims there were."

"You've got another one over there," someone called to him. Pucella looked and moved to where he saw a pool of blood onstage.

He and his wife have been spending summers at Chautauqua for 30 years. He describes the 148-year-old institution, about two hours from Cleveland, as a “cross between a college campus, a summer camp and a resort.” Days and nights are filled with concerts, lectures, and other cultural activities. Pucella is so much a part of the community that he works as a paramedic while there, a week at a time.

Oddly enough, he said, he was not working the day of the attack. He was not working, that is, until he reached the theater stage and Rushdie.

The first wound, to the author's neck, had cut his jugular vein, which could have caused death within minutes. The next went through his right eyebrow. The attacker knocked Rushdie to the floor as he raised an arm to defend himself “and continued stabbing all the way down," severing nerves in his arm and damaging his liver, Pucella said. “All the wounds were on his right side. The whole attack was over in 15 seconds.”

Another paramedic who was in attendance “put his thumb in the hole in his neck, like something you would see in a war movie. We started packing all the holes with gauze.” Pucella also relieved the pressure of pooling blood that was pushing Rushdie’s eye from the socket.

One of the volunteers had a radio. Pucella grabbed it to call for backup and a medevac helicopter. The closest trauma center, in Erie, was 40 minutes away by ambulance but 10 minutes by helicopter.

The situation was so precarious when the helicopter arrived that the two paramedics on board were reluctant to transport Rushdie, fearing they wouldn’t be able to hold his airway tube and slashed artery at the same time. Pucella insisted they fly him. “I knew he wasn’t going to make it otherwise,” he said. “He was on death’s doorstep.”

Suffering what his son described as “life-changing injuries,” Rushdie underwent surgery and began a slow recovery at UPMC Hamot in Erie. Henry Reese, 73, was treated there for a facial injury and released the same day.

The attacker, identified by New York State Police as a 24-year-old man from New Jersey, was charged with attempted murder and assault and held without bail. 

Pucella, covered in blood, returned to the amphitheater as the helicopter took off, hoping to retrieve a favorite shirt he had removed to keep it clean, only to be told by State Police that the area was off-limits as a crime scene. "I got it back two days later," he said with a chuckle.

The interest in education and cultural matters that brought Pucella to Chautauqua extends to his own heritage. Like other members of his family, the father of three is a longtime active member of Unione e Fratellanza Oratinese, the 98-year-old society founded by immigrants from the village of Oratino, Campobasso for themselves and their descendants.

“We are very proud of our member, Pete,” club president Anthony Pinto said. “This is just another good example of where an Italian American steps up, with no fanfare, and demonstrates leadership. No surprise!”