RUMFORD – “Help me, help me! I’m stabbed!” screamed a bloodied Tracey White as she ran up Penobscot Street into the arms of neighbors Faye Cureton and Pauline Wilson late Thursday afternoon, Wilson said.

Wilson and Cureton helped White out of the middle of Maine Avenue and into a hedge-lined cement stairwell just up the street from Scott and Tracey White’s 2-story brown house at 139 Penobscot St.

Shortly after the 4:30 p.m. incident at the Whites’ house, police arrested Scott White, Detective Lt. Mark Cayer said at the scene.

Wilson, who said Cayer told her the bloodied woman had a collapsed lung, later said she was taken by ambulance to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. Tracey White was listed in fair condition about 9:30 p.m. Thursday, a nursing supervisor said.

Sgt. David Bean said Scott White, 46, who is unemployed and Tracey’s husband, was charged with attempted murder, elevated aggravated assault and terrorizing, all Class A felonies.

White is being held at the Oxford County Jail in Paris on $20,000 cash or $100,000 surety bail. A corrections officer there said White is scheduled to appear in Oxford County Superior Court at 8 a.m. on Aug. 23, however, he will be arraigned before a judge today at a place and time not yet known.

Wilson said that while they were waiting for emergency responders, Tracey White told her what happened.

“(She) said they were fighting in the house, and she said she had pinned him down, and when she tried to get away, he grabbed a steak knife and stabbed her three times, once in her shoulder, once just under her armpit and another into her ribs.

“I thought it might have punctured her lung, because while we were helping her, she was getting very dizzy and nauseous, and I thought she was going to pass out,” Wilson said.

“I was telling her to breathe,” said Maine Avenue neighbor, David Merriam.

“She come walking out of her house when we seen her, with blood all over her shirt from three different wounds,” another Maine Avenue neighbor, Greg Gibbons said, referring to himself and Merriam, who had been sitting on the porch of their multifamily apartment building.

Wilson, who lives at 82 Maine Ave., said she had heard “all kinds of hollering” coming from the house after visiting her daughters.

The Whites “were arguing and squabbling all afternoon. Then, no sooner than I got out of my car, (Tracey) come running out of the house yelling, ‘Help me, help me! I’m bleeding! He stabbed me! Help me! Help me! I’m stabbed!’ We got hold of her and got her out of the road,” Wilson said of herself and Cureton, who was out walking at the time.

The two women yelled for help from bail commissioner Bob Grinnell, who was serving papers in the area. Merriam said he called 911 while Grinnell radioed for police. Merriam and Gibbons said Scott White fled in his car.

Patrolman Matthew Noyes was headed to the scene when he saw the suspect’s light blue car in the rotary just east of lower Penobscot Street and stopped it in front of Hanson’s Automotive. As Noyes was about to draw his weapon and approach, the shirtless driver, identified later as Scott White, quickly got out of the car and put his arms up over his head, surrendering without incident.

Noyes handcuffed him as Sgt. David Bean arrived, placed White in his cruiser and took him to the police station. Around 10 p.m., he was being taken to the Oxford County Jail in Paris to have bail set and an arraignment scheduled in Oxford County Superior Court in Paris.

Noyes said he expected more charges to be filed against Scott White as the investigation continued.

More than two hours after the incident, Detectives Daniel Garbarini and Tri-County domestic violence/sex crimes Detective Paul Casey were still at the couple’s home collecting evidence.

“I’ve lived here going on eight years, and this is the first serious thing I’ve ever witnessed,” Wilson said.

“It was kind of insane, something like this happening here,” Gibbons said.