Writer Salman Rushdie remains “in critical condition” although he has not needed a respirator since Saturday, his son Zafar Rushdie reported on a Twitter account speaking on behalf of the family.
Zafar Rushdie expressed the family’s “relief” because yesterday the writer, stabbed on Friday at a public conference, “was able to say a few words” after being removed from the respirator to which he was connected for more than a day.
“My father remains in critical condition in hospital, receiving extensive medical treatment. We are immensely relieved that yesterday he was taken off the respirator and the additional oxygen and he was able to say a few words,” Zafar said verbatim in what he called “a statement from the family.”
He specified that “his jovial and defiant sense of humor is still intact, despite the seriousness of his injuries”, and after thanking all those who helped the writer in the first critical moments after the attack, he asked for respect for the privacy of the family while its members “gather at the foot of his bed for his help and support”.
For his part, Rushdie’s literary agent, Andrew Wylie, confirmed the same details in an interview with CNN: “He is off the ventilator, so the road to recovery has begun. (However) this will be long, the injuries are serious », he added.
Wylie himself told The New York Times on Friday that Rushdie would probably lose one of his eyes, that his liver had been severely damaged by the stab wounds and that the assailant had “cut the nerves in one arm” of the writer.
Meanwhile, the attacker Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old man born in the United States and the son of Lebanese immigrants to this country, remains in custody and faces charges of attempted second-degree murder and armed assault.
EFE
