MURFREESBORO, Tenn. -- Police said a man dragged his friend under his truck for 1,000 feet in the Thompson Square area of Murfreesboro on Saturday night.

Video: Man Dragged 1,000 Feet By Truck

Keith Whittemore, 40, was driving home with Jeffery Morrison after a night of drinking at Stampede Dance Hall & Saloon, when the two men started fighting, said police.

"The passenger exited the vehicle, and at some point was struck by the vehicle and was dragged approximately 1,000 feet," said Murfreesboro police spokesman Kyle Evans.

"I'm tore up because this shouldn't have happened," said Whittemore's mother.

Whittemore left his friend laying in the road, but his mother said her son didn't know that he had hit his friend. She said that Whittemore was bloodied from the fight and was trying to escape his attacker.

He wouldn’t hurt anybody," said Whittemore's mother.

However, some neighbors find that hard to believe.

"How could somebody leave this man laying here like this? That was the thing I kept on saying over and over again," said Michelle Young, who helped Morrison after the incident.

Morrison's wife said her husband is in stable condition in-and-out of conscious at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville. She said he has severe burns on his skin as a result of the dragging and believes it is impossible that Whittemore did not know that Morrison was under the truck.

Whittemore is charged with vehicular assault and leaving the scene of an accident.