GRAND RAPIDS -- A man trying to steal some knives at a Meijer store is hospitalized after falling on them while trying to flee.

It was around 5:41 p.m. Monday when authorities received the call to respond to the incident at the Knapps Corner store.

Police and Meijer officials told 24 Hour News 8 the suspect was approached by store security and fell on the knives during a scuffle and stabbed himself in the abdomen.

He was taken to a hospital for treatment of his injuries.

"I saw a man laying down on the mat by the carts, there was a knife laying by him with blood on the full blade of the knife. It wasn't a dull kitchen knife and it wasn't a sharp butcher's knife, it was kinda somewhere in between," Heather Dodd, a shopper, told 24 Hour News 8.

"Someone was holding him down so I just kinda walked around him, grabbed my cart, made sure everything was OK and got out of the way. He looked conscious and he wasn't struggling at all. I didn't hear any screams, any noises out of him. He was just held down with his hands behind his back," she said.

Police say shoplifting is a misdemeanor and that the suspect has a record of retail fraud.