A Readfield man who allegedly punched a woman so severely she required immediate eye surgery to repair fractured bones was charged with aggravated domestic violence assault on Wednesday, police said.

Kern Mann, 53, allegedly punched an 82-year-old woman several times following an argument, fracturing orbital bones around her eyes and breaking her nose. That left her with both eyes swollen shut and one eye partially out of its socket, requiring immediate eye surgery, according to an affidavit filed at court by Maine State Police.

Police were called to a home on P Ridge Road, in Readfield on Tuesday just before 7 p.m. for a report of a domestic disturbance, after Mann called 911 and allegedly told a dispatcher he had assaulted the woman and slit his own wrists, according to Trooper Travis Luce.

Luce arrived at the property and Mann walked toward him, holding his arms with something wrapped around them, his clothes bloodstained and his arms bleeding. Luce and another trooper applied bandages, wraps and tourniquets to both Mann’s arms in an attempt to stop the bleeding and called for Winthrop Ambulance to respond.

Luce said Mann, who was crying and appeared to be almost fainting, told him he had assaulted the woman and was sorry. Luce said he could detect the slight odor of alcohol on Mann’s breath.

Luce then went down the road to a neighbor’s home, where the woman was already in the back of a different Winthrop Ambulance getting medical attention. He said he observed her “face to be severely bruised and both eyes were swollen shut as well as a laceration to her forehead. Her left eye had partially come out of its socket,” and was blood-red.

“The paramedic requested I drive the ambulance to the hospital in a hurry due to the condition of” the woman, Luce wrote. Luce drove the woman to the hospital as a separate ambulance drove Mann to the same hospital and retrieved his cruiser later.

The woman, who was later hospitalized at MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta, told Luce she was home with Mann while he was making dinner, and an argument broke out after she asked him to go out and talk to a man doing lawn care on the property. The argument escalated and Mann, the affidavit states, punched her several times in the face with a closed fist. She told police she made it out of the house through an open garage door and walked onto her lawn. She said at that point she couldn’t see so she just kept walking on the grass in the general direction of her neighbor’s house. A neighbor spotted her and called 911.

After Mann was examined and tended to by hospital staff, Luce took him to Kennebec County jail early Wednesday morning, where Luce charged him with aggravated domestic violence assault. He was being held Wednesday at the jail on $25,000 cash bail.

A spokesperson for MaineGeneral Medical Center said the woman was in “good condition” as of Wednesday afternoon.