ST. LOUIS – A Tennessee man in town for a party at Ballpark Village is accused of driving drunk and striking a pedestrian on Monday.

According to the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department’s probable cause statement, officers were called to South Fourth and Gratiot streets for a hit-and-run crash.

When officers arrived, they found the victim in the middle of the street, suffering from what police described as gruesome injuries. Witnesses reported hearing the victim screaming from beneath the vehicle that hit him.

Police learned the victim was walking northbound on South Fourth Street and crossing Chouteau Avenue when he was struck by a Ford Edge traveling westbound on Chouteau. The victim was knocked into the air and landed in front of the SUV, which turned right on South Fourth and headed north.

The victim became trapped beneath the Edge and was dragged approximately 500 feet before being dislodged at South Fourth and Gratiot.

Investigators used Real Time Crime Center cameras and license plate readers to get the plate number on the Edge.

A short time later, on Sept. 23, police located the vehicle at a gas station in the city and identified the driver as Cory Aiono. Officers found skin, clothes, and hair fused to the undercarriage off the vehicle.

A woman traveling with Aiono told officers that Aiono was drunk and didn’t want to park his vehicle, police said.

According to police, Aiono “remembered hitting something,” but didn’t know what he’d hit. After the woman he was with told him he’d struck a person, they went to the gas station to fuel up before returning to Tennessee.

The St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office charged Aiono with first-degree assault, armed criminal action, and leaving the scene of an accident with physical injury.