Splinter Cell Voice Actor Among Injured In Mumbai

Source: CBC


Canadian actor Michael Rudder "took three bullets" during the Mumbai attacks, but is now stable and recovering in hospital, according to an organizer of the spiritual retreat the Montreal performer had enrolled in.

Rudder had been in the restaurant of the Oberoi Hotel when militants stormed in, Bobbie Garvey, vice-president of the U.S.-based Synchronicity Foundation, told CBC News on Thursday afternoon.

After being hit by three bullets, Rudder "was taken to the hospital. He did have surgery [that was] very successful. He was in intensive care for a little while, but he is very stable and he is healing at the moment," she added.

Rudder was one of two Canadians from the Synchronicity delegation wounded in the attacks.

Yoga teacher Helen Connolly of Markham, Ont., was grazed by a bullet during the Wednesday attacks.

"She's absolutely fine. She's staying with one of our Indian host families right now, getting ready to come back to Canada," Garvey said.

Rudder is a voice actor who has played roles in cartoons, commercials and video games, including top sellers Assassin's Creed and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3. He has also performed in the animated PBS series Postcards From Buster.

Throughout his career, he has also worked in theatre, television and film, receiving a 1989 Genie Award nomination for best-supporting actor for the film Buying Time — a movie about young thieves ordered to perform community service in a seniors residence.

Altogether, there were about two dozen people in the Synchronicity meditation group, Garvey said, including Rudder, Connolly and two individuals from British Columbia who remain in Mumbai.

Larry and Bernie Koftinoff, of Kelowna, B.C., were reportedly stuck on the 16th floor of the 333-room Oberoi Hotel, waiting for authorities to rescue them.

"Some of the people in their group had gone to dinner down in the lobby of the hotel when the terrorists came in," said their daughter, Maya Koftinoff, in a telephone interview from Kelowna. "I think two of them were shot."

Koftinoff said she was worried after hours went by without hearing from her parents, but that the couple has since left the hotel and sought refuge at a nearby temple.