A Lawrence County man is looking at felony charges, after one person was stabbed in an argument over a “mom” joke. Police responded to a report of a stabbing, but soon learned that the victim had been taken to Three Rivers Medical Center.

At the hospital, police interviewed the victim and a witness, who said the altercation started Saturday just before midnight at a home on Wallace Street in Louisa. The police report doesn’t indicate who told the joke, but the victim told police that Matt Savage, 51, went after a male juvenile while Savage’s wife held him back by his collar. Once outside, the police report alleges Savage followed brandishing a pocketknife, saying he was going to cut the youth from “ear to ear” and calling him a racial slur.

The victim told police he was stabbed while attempting to keep Savage from getting to the boy.

When police went to the home where the incident occurred, they found blood on the sidewalk, bloody footprints leading to the home, and more blood on the porch, which appeared that someone had tried to wash away. Savage was arrested on felony charges of first-degree assault and attempted first-degree wanton endangerment. The assault charge is the most serious, carrying a potential penalty of 10-to-20 years in prison.