One of the US servicemen hailed as a hero for tackling a gunman on a French train in August is in a serious condition after being stabbed outside a bar in California.
Spencer Stone, 23, was with friends early on Thursday when he was involved in a fight and stabbed multiple times in the upper body, Sacramento police says.
The hospital's medical director, Dr J Douglas Kirk, says Stone has undergone surgery for three stab wounds and is expected to make a full recovery, ABC News reports.
Police say they believe the stabbing was not a terrorist attack, instead characterising it as a "nightlife-related incident" that may have begun in a nearby nightclub.
Surveillance video posted to social media by police appears to show the stabbing during a fight with several men who police identified as "persons of interest" and asked for public help to find them.
"Everyone in Sacramento will be looking for them to defend our hero," wrote Facebook user Brittany Hamstreet.
"They might as well turn themselves in."
Stone made headlines around the world on August 21 when he and childhood friends Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler thwarted a gun attack on a train from Amsterdam to Paris.
Aided by a British man and a French-American man, who was shot in the attack, they tackled and disarmed Ayoub Al-Khazzani, a 25-year-old Moroccan who had opened fire on passengers armed with a Kalashnikov and a pistol.
In subduing Khazzani, Stone was stabbed in the neck and his thumb was sliced so severely it had to be reattached in emergency surgery.
The three Americans along with the British man were awarded the French Legion of Honour.
The Americans also received the top US medals for bravery outside of combat and met US President Barack Obama at the White House last month.
Skarlatos asked fans on social media to pray for Stone, but was positive about him surviving the attack.
"Spencer is one tough guy. And only he could have done something like that and lived, yet again," he wrote on Twitter.
The stabbing was not the train heroes' only close call since their return.
Skarlatos comes from Roseburg, Oregon, and had enrolled in classes at Umpqua Community College, where a gunman massacred nine people October 1.
