Bleeding from her head and neck, a woman walked up to a house in St. Paul and started knocking.
When no one answered, she crossed the street and tried another address.
That’s where she was when police found her about 2 a.m. Sunday morning, sitting on a front porch outside a home on Central Avenue, moaning, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday in Ramsey County District Court.
As an officer approached her, he saw she had blood running down her face and also had a large area of skin on her forehead that had been peeled back from what appeared to be a traumatic injury.
The woman, who is 55, told police she was riding in a red truck with her longtime boyfriend, Wilson Townsel, 58, in St. Paul when he suddenly reached over, opened her passenger door and shoved her out of the moving vehicle, the complaint said.
She was able to hold on to the vehicle for a little while, but she said the speed of the truck caused her to lose her grip and fall into the street, legal documents say.
She was taken by ambulance to Regions Hospital and rushed into surgery, the complaint said.
Officers found her after one of the residents whose door she knocked on called police.
In addition to the gaping wound on her forehead, doctors discovered the woman had a collapsed lung, fractured ribs and a ruptured spleen, along with bruises and scrapes on other areas of her body, authorities say.
Townsel, of Fridley, was charged via warrant Tuesday with one count of first-degree assault resulting in great bodily harm. He was expected to make his first appearance on the allegations Wednesday afternoon.
No attorney was listed for him in court records.
Townsel’s criminal history includes a misdemeanor-level theft-by-swindle conviction in 2018 and a theft of burglary tools conviction in 2014.