Youth Stabbed Through Head With Metal Rod During Fight : Violence: Nine suspected gang members are arrested in the attack. The 17-year-old victim is in critical condition after surgery.

SAN CLEMENTE — A 17-year-old high school student was in critical condition Saturday night after surgeons removed a six-inch metal rod that was rammed through his head after a dispute with a group of suspected gang members at a Calafia State Beach parking lot, authorities said.

“This is a tragedy, it really is,” said Lt. Tom Davis of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. “In 18 1/2 years of police work, I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Fanning out through the town in the 17 hours after the Friday night incident, sheriff’s deputies arrested nine people--four adults and five juveniles--and charged them with attempted murder. All are from San Clemente.

Law enforcement and hospital officials declined to identify the injured youngster because of his age, but they said they do not believe he is affiliated with a gang.

According to Davis, the altercation began about 10 p.m. Friday when 11 teen-agers drove to the beach in four cars after a football game at San Clemente High School. At one point, he said, one of them got into an argument with a member of another group at the beach, and the first group decided to leave.

As they were driving out of the parking lot, the second group began pelting their cars with rocks and bottles, breaking several windows and causing some dents. A hospital spokesman who talked to witnesses said that the victim--one of three boys and two girls riding in one of the cars--was stabbed with the steel rod as he stuck his head slightly out a passenger window to see what was happening.

With the rod protruding from each side of his head just above the temple, the unconscious youngster was taken by friends to Samaritan Medical Center in San Clemente before being transferred to Mission Viejo’s Mission Community Hospital. He spent spent several hours undergoing emergency surgery, and two surgeons were able to remove the rod.

“Right now it’s a matter of survival,” the spokesman said, adding that the boy had not regained consciousness. “This is a major brain injury. (The rod) got into a lot of vital areas.”

The hospital official said the rod appeared to have come from a paint roller.