Woman found with throat slashed in Kensington

Police are looking for the assailant who slashed a woman's throat overnight in Kensington.

Officers were called to the area near Frankford Avenue and Stella Street at about 3 a.m. Tuesday, when passersby encountered the woman on the street, bleeding severely from her throat.

"All I could see is blood," said Paul Raab, a 42-year-old neighborhood resident who was about to take his chihuahua outside when he saw a vehicle swerve around the wounded woman. "She couldn't breathe, she couldn't talk."

Chief Inspector Scott Small told reporters that the victim, who is about 40 years old, suffered a foot-long slash across her neck.

The woman was taken to Temple University Hospital, where she was listed in critical condition.

The victim had apparently jumped in front of the car in effort to attract attention and get help, Raab said. He and the vehicle's occupants wrapped a towel around the deep gash on the woman's neck until police arrived seconds later.

"It all happened so fast, there was nothing you could do but try to help the woman," he said.

Few details about the circumstances of brutal assault were known late Tuesday morning. It wasn't clear whether the crime occurred on the Kensington street or the woman was dropped off from elsewhere, no motive was apparent and police had no description of any suspects.

Raab said he has lived in the neighborhood for nearly three decades and violence is nothing new, but he couldn't recall an incident as harrowing.

"That wound was so bad," he said. "It was horrific. It was intentional, whatever they did."