MAUSTON - A man Juneau County authorities believe was a beating victim was just minutes from death when he was brought to the hospital, the emergency room doctor who was the first to treat him said on Tuesday.

"There's no might about it, he would have died," said Dr. Kenneth Kudsk, a surgeon and trauma specialist at the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison.

"My initial impression was that he had been beaten up," Kudsk said at a hearing in a Juneau County court room.

More than three hours of testimony from Kudsk and other witnesses convinced Circuit Court Judge Paul Curran to rule Tuesday that reasonable grounds exist to prosecute Carl Bennett and Kelli Tasior for the attempted murder of Dave Anderson in the early morning of Oct. 30.

Anderson, 35, suffered injuries to his throat and head so severe that he was unable to breathe properly despite the efforts of emergency medical technicians who treated him before and as he was flown to the hospital, Kudsk said.

Authorities believe that all three traveled from Wisconsin Dells, where Anderson lives, to rural Juneau County in Tasior's car after a night of drinking.

They believe that Bennett, 46, of Baraboo, beat Anderson after the car left County Highway N and overturned in the town of Lyndon. Tasior, 42, of Adams, is accused of being a party to the crime.

A rescue team that responded to the crash found Anderson in a pool of blood in the roadway more than 200 feet from the overturned car.

Accident investigators later determined that Anderson had not been ejected in the crash, and details that emerged in court on Tuesday seemed to back authorities' claims that Anderson was the victim of a crime.

Colleen Anderson, a deputy with the Juneau County Sheriff's Department, testified that Tasior volunteered details of the incident in a statement taken two days later, but before Tasior was arrested.

Tasior told the deputy that after she, Bennett and Dave Anderson left a tavern in Wisconsin Dells in her car she passed out in the back seat and awakened in the overturned car to see Bennett outside "kicking and stomping" Anderson. Anderson, who she said had been driving, was pleading for Bennett to stop and insisting that his insurance would pay for damage to the car.

In her statement to the sheriff's deputy Tasior also said she tried, and finally succeeded, at getting Bennett to stop kicking Anderson. Tasior gave a similar account of the incident to a friend in a series of conversations in the days following the incident according to the friend, who also testified on Tuesday.

"‘Oh my God! I can't believe he [Bennett] could do something like that. He beat him so bad,'" the friend said Tasior told her.

According to Randy Georgeson, a detective with the Juneau County Sheriff's Department, Bennett gave authorities varying accounts of the incident, including one in which he said that he and Anderson had argued, but not come to blows.

Georgeson also testified that his investigation of the crash scene uncovered two areas of blood stains on the roadway far removed from the large blood stain found where Anderson lay. He said a search of Bennett's residence turned up blood-stained clothing authorities believe he wore during the alleged assault, including a pair of white pants that Bennett's live-in girlfriend said she had washed and bleached. Blood was also found on a jacket Tasior wore during the incident, Georgeson said.

According to testimony on Tuesday, neither of the accused attempted to get help for Anderson, who was rescued after a nearby resident saw him on the road and called for help.

Caregivers at UW Hospital have refused to release details of Anderson's condition, citing a patient privacy law. But Kudsk indicated during testimony on Tuesday that Anderson was then still a patient at the hospital. Anderson was recovering, Kudsk said, but may suffer some permanent physical and mental impairment.

Bennett and Tasior are scheduled to be arraigned on Dec. 17.