THETFORD, Vt. (AP) – A woman whose estranged husband allegedly threw lye on her has lost her eyes, nose and ears as a result and is unlikely to survive, her father said.

Carmen Tarleton, a 39-year-old nurse burned in what police say was an attack by her estranged husband, is under sedation – her vital signs strong – at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, according to Joe Blandin, of Fairlee.

Doctors are having trouble finding enough healthy skin to graft, he said.

“The doctors explained it was very grim,” he said.

Herbert Rodgers, 52, of White River Junction is accused of aggravated assault, burglary and domestic assault. He is being held without bail.

The two, who were married for nine years, were in the process of getting a divorce when Rodgers broke into Tarleton’s home Sunday and beat her before dousing her with lye, according to Vermont State Police.

At Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., where Tarleton worked, a fund has been set up for friends and colleagues to donate money for her medical bills and the living expenses of her daughters, who are 12 and 14.

The Carmen Tarleton Fund will be augmented by fundraising activities still in the works, according to David Evancich, a hospital spokesman.

“Her colleagues were just shocked, traumatized,” he said. “It’s really a tragic situation.”

Tarleton, who grew up near Lake Fairlee, moved to Lebanon, N.H., after her parents divorced and played softball in high school.

After graduating, she had two children and moved to California in the 1990s, where she worked as a nurse at UCLA Medical Center and met Rodgers, who was then a medical supply salesman.

“He knew how to talk,” Blandin said. “He was very pleasant company, very polite and well-mannered. If I introduced you, you’d like this guy.”

They moved back to Vermont last June.

Tarleton told her father she was going through a divorce earlier this year, but she gave no details and didn’t seem distraught over it, he said.

“I never saw a change in her,” Blandin said.

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