WASHINGTON — Metro’s station manager at the Stadium-Armory station is recovering from a stab wound inflicted by a woman with a…

WASHINGTON — Metro’s station manager at the Stadium-Armory station is recovering from a stab wound inflicted by a woman with a kitchen knife.

The man is spending the night in the hospital and police are searching for the attacker.

Metro says the 18-year veteran employee, who has not been publicly identified, was stabbed when he refused the woman’s demand that she be allowed a free ride.

“She approached the station manager and asked if she could ride the system for free,” says Dan Stessel, chief spokesman for Metro. “When the station manager declined, there was an altercation that began with her spitting on the station manager and then escalated with her stabbing the station manager in the left side.”

After the attack, the woman left the Metro station.

Metro Transit Police launched an immediate search of the Northeast D.C. neighborhood in a failed attempt to find her. Detectives are reviewing video surveillance images to further their investigation.

They’ve also interviewed the station manager at the hospital.

A still image drawn from surveillance video showing the woman entering the stage shows that she is heavy-set, wearing a grey pullover with a distinctive blue and white stripe on the sleeve.

The attack happened Sunday afternoon, just before 12 p.m.

The station manager was stabbed once, receiving what Stessel calls, “a pretty significant puncture wound, in a pretty serious location, in the torso.”

It’s unclear if the station manager was inside the kiosk and stepped out when the encounter began, but he was outside the kiosk when he was attacked.

“It all happened so very suddenly and escalated very quickly,” Stessel says.