Updated

South Korea's president has visited injured U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert amid an outpouring of public sympathy and support for the envoy attacked by a knife-wielding man.

Lippert is hospitalized at Seoul's Severance Hospital where Park also received treatment in 2006 when she was knifed by a man with a box cutter during an election rally. Park was then an opposition leader.

Park's office says the president headed to the hospital shortly after she returned to South Korea from a Middle East tour on Monday.

Park was quoted as saying "my heart is aching more" because Lippert is hospitalized at the same hospital due to a similar attack.

Conservative activists and Christians have wished Lippert a quick recovery, and one well-wishing man even tried to offer dog meat to him.