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A mother dropping her children off at a baby sitter's home in Fitchburg suffered a serious head injury Friday after dangling from a moving car for nearly 45 feet while trying to stop someone from stealing it, according to a criminal complaint.

The accused car thief, Charysse E. Langlois, 25, of Madison, later called police after she came out of an apartment and the car was gone.

Langlois was charged Tuesday with second-degree reckless endangerment, theft and driving a car without the owner's consent. Langlois was jailed on $4,500 bail, but that could change to a signature bond if she is accepted into the court's Bail Monitoring Program.

According to the complaint, Adelina Martinez-Calderon dropped off her children at her baby sitter's home in the 4900 block of Chalet Gardens Road on Friday morning and was getting into her car when someone grabbed her by the back of her shirt and pushed her to the ground. After that, she only remembers waking up at UW Hospital.

Doctors told police Martinez-Calderon knew her own name, but didn't know the name of the hospital, what day it was or who the president was. She also suffered a seizure as a result of a head injury, the complaint states.

Witnesses told police they saw a woman, later identified as Langlois, push Martinez-Calderon away from her car as she tried to get in, according to the complaint. The witnesses said Martinez-Calderon then went halfway into the car through an open window and tried to grab the car keys, while Langlois drove away. Martinez-Calderon fell out and landed on her back when Langlois "punched the gas," one of the witnesses said.

Langlois admitted to police that she took the car but claimed Martinez-Calderon told her she could. She said she drove it to an apartment on Crescent Road and used money from Martinez-Calderon's purse to buy crack cocaine, according to the complaint.

Langlois said she called police when she came out of the apartment and the car was gone, the complaint states.