By Onika James Wednesday, February 10 2010

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Stabbing victim: A policeman, left, looks on as a paramedic adjusts the stretcher before stabbing victim Dale Martinez is placed in an ambulance at Ci...

An argument over a Nintendo game led to a 15-year-old student being stabbed in his left leg at City Gate, Port-of-Spain yesterday.

Dale Martinez, of Woodbrook Secondary School, was attacked at about 4 pm as hundreds of commuters were heading for maxi taxis and buses to head home.

Eyewitnesses said Martinez and another student were arguing over a Nintendo game when Martinez was stabbed in his left leg outside a KFC outlet at the transportation hub.

“Blood began to spray out of the wound,” said one man, who did not want to be named. “This thing happened right here. I was standing right there. I am at a loss. We cannot go on like this.”

A team of Emergency Health Services paramedics arrived within 15 minutes of the stabbing and they bandaged Martinez’s bleeding leg before taking him to Port-of-Spain General Hospital in an ambulance. They drove out from the western exit of City Gate.

Moments later, Inter Agency Task Force officers from Central Police Station detained a male student of the Servol Life Centre, at the eastern exit of City Gate, in connection with the stabbing.

He was placed in the backseat of a marked police SUV and slapped by one officer. His school bag was emptied and searched, and shortly after the suspect was driven away to the Central Police Station on St Vincent Street.

Commuters expressed outrage over the daring act of violence.

“I am fed up. We looking bad right through. They don’t care about us. I fed-up,” a young female student told Newsday. “This thing is getting bad.” A man also shouted, “Everyday, everyday so. What is going on in this country?”

Last evening, investigators said Martinez, who lives at Dinsley Gardens, was in stable condition at the hospital.

Leon Lavier, an official of Servol Life Centre in Beetham Gardens, was unaware that a student of the school was held for the stabbing but said he would look into the report.