LEANDER, Texas (KXAN) — A Rouse High School student was arrested last week after allegedly stabbing his art teacher in the hand.

At around 3:53 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 20, police were called to the nurse’s office at Rouse High in Leander. Officers arrived to find a teacher with two large cuts to her right middle finder and one smaller cut to her right index finger. The teacher was bleeding profusely, according to a police affidavit, and was very pale. She identified Ryland Gonzalez, 17, one of her art class students, as the student responsible.

The teacher said towards the end of class, she saw him with an X-ACTO knife — a handle knife used for precision cutting — stabbing a Styrofoam dinosaur. She told him to stop stabbing the dinosaur and asked Gonzalez to hand her the knife. He turned and faced her, but did not hand over the knife. The teacher then grabbed the handle of the knife, as Gonzalez yanked it away and then slashed at her hand three times, police say. She began to bleed heavily and then stumbled into the next door classroom.

Officers say due to the severity of the injury, the teacher was taken to St. David’s North Medical Center where she received 10 stitches in her middle finger and was told to see a hand surgeon for possible ligament damage.

Police say the student was able to get on his school bus and go home before being contacted by an officer or school administration. Friday morning, an officer spoke with the teacher who said she wanted to press charges against Gonzalez. When the student showed up to school, he was called into the assistant principal’s office. Gonzalez said he had permission to use the knife and his teacher reached for the knife while he was using it, causing him to accidentally slice her with it, the affidavit continued.

Gonzalez said when his teacher reached for the knife and he pulled away he was just “playing around.” He claimed to not know how his teacher had three distinct wounds. He suggested she may have sliced her hand when he pulled the knife away. An officer stated, “The cuts on [the teacher’s] fingers were deep puncture wounds that are not consistent with a clean slice as the defendant described.”

The student was booked into the Williamson County Jail on a $15,000 bond and released the same day.