MELBOURNE: A woman may never see again after a man gouged her eyeballs out with an electric cattle prod in a horrific attack in the main street of a Victorian country town.

Surgeons at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital in East Melbourne operated on the woman, 28, for five hours on Saturday in a desperate bid to save her sight.

Police said one of the woman’s eyeballs was torn from its socket during the attack, outside a hotel in the main street of Malmsbury, 100 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, about 12.45am on Saturday.

Malmsbury police senior constable Bob Sheridan told the Bendigo Advertiser the attacker had seriously damaged both the woman’s eyes.

Senior Constable Sheridan told the Advertiser the publican had been awoken by the woman’s screams and the attacker fled when he came to the victim’s aid.

Police arrested a 30-year-old Malmsbury man, believed to be the woman’s de facto, at his home soon after the incident.

The man appeared before a bail justice in Kyneton on Saturday and was remanded in Bendigo over the weekend.

He will appear in Kyneton Magistrate’s Court today charged with 13 offences including recklessly causing serious injury, intentionally causing serious injury, common law assault, threats to kill and possessing a prohibited weapon.

A spokeswoman for the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital said today the woman was in a stable condition but emotionally distraught following the attack.