TEN people were injured yesterday when a man ran wild in a crowded supermarket, stabbing shoppers and staff with a Swiss Army knife and another with a four-inch blade.

Last night, police were questioning a local man, believed to be a 23-year-old part-time shelf-stacker at the Netto supermarket in Bordesley Green, Birmingham, who was arrested outside the store shortly after the incident.

Four of the victims suffered serious injuries but doctors said their heavy winter clothes probably saved their lives. Surgeons at Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham, where nine of the casualties were taken, operated on a 65-year-old man, the oldest victi

m, who has a serious stab wound in his stomach.

Two of the casualties had been discharged by last night and all were said to be in stable condition.

One of the victims, Mark Edwards, 15, from King's Heath, Birmingham, speaking from his hospital bed as he recovered from a back wound, said he had gone into the store with his parents and nine-year-old sister Elizabeth.

``I could hear a commotion and I thought it was a shoplifter,'' he said. ``Everyone started to head towards the exits and then I saw a man running down with two knives in his hands.

``He was just jabbing and stabbing with the knives as he came by. My sister was standing still and he was going towards her. So I grabbed her and just pushed her through the exit.

``I turned round to go out myself and then felt like I had been punched in the back.''

It was not until he got outside the store that his father found he was covered in blood and had been stabbed.

His father, Robert, 47, drove him to the hospital. He said: ``It was not until we saw the knives that we realised it was something very serious. We have all been very lucky to get out alive.''

Another victim, lorry driver Dennis Cooksey, 57, from Castle Vale, Birmingham, was stabbed in the shoulder as he walked around the store with his wife Joan.

``I was standing right by the rubber doors to the storeroom and I must have been the first one he stabbed,'' said Mr Cooksey, a father of four.

``I tried to get after him but could feel my shoulder going numb and had to stop. The larger knife had a jagged edge on one side.''

Mr Cooksey said he believed his coat, a Christmas present from his wife, had probably saved his life.

``I got this thick, quilted coat for Christmas and that is what really saved me,'' he said. ``The blade had to go through that coat, my jumper, and my shirt before reaching me.''

Three knives were recovered after the attack, including a four-inch single-edged Bowie-type knife and a Swiss Army knife. A Stanley knife recovered was not used.

Mr Carl Ball, the area manager for the store, said: ``This is as much a shock to us as to everyone else. We are very, very distressed and are launching a full investigation.''

The shop is likely to remain closed for several days.

Doctors at Heartlands Hospital confirmed the victims' winter clothes had helped lessen their injuries.

Mr Robert Holl-Allen, the senior consultant surgeon, who operated on the 65-year-old man, said: ``Without heavy clothes, the knife would have penetrated the abdomen another inch and a half and could have brought a major injury. If that had happened then h

e could have been dead within five minutes.''

The youngest casualty, a 13-year-old boy, suffered a chest wound. All the victims live locally.

Mr Martin Shalley, a consultant at the hospital, said: "The thing that struck me was the utter silence when they came in. It was most disturbing. "