NJ dad of 3 randomly stabbed at Port Authority Bus Terminal received 46 stitches: ‘Thankful I’m still here’

A father of three who was stabbed outside a Manhattan bus terminal Monday morning said he’s thankful to be alive following the unprovoked attack that left him needing 46 stitches.

Daniel Salvatore, who was on his way to work as a carpenter, was stabbed and slashed eight times in the neck and arm by a stranger who ambushed him as he sat reading a book outside the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown just before 6 a.m.

The New Jersey husband and dad of three adult kids will now spend his 66th birthday on Tuesday in the hospital recovering.

But he said he’s just glad to see another day.

“I should have been dead,” Salvatore told The Post from his hospital bed. “I got 46 stitches and I’m very thankful I’m still here.”

The carpenter has been commuting from New Jersey to Manhattan for the past five years and has a routine in which he reads a book for a half-hour after he gets off the bus at the Port Authority terminal while he waits for his co-worker.

On Monday, he was leafing through “I Cheerfully Refuse” by Leif Enger, an early birthday present, when from the corner of his eye he noticed a man charging at him.

“I was just sitting there reading and someone came up from my blindside, on the right side, I saw him, turned, just saw his face, and all of a sudden the knife went in my neck,” he said of the frightening attack.

The unhinged man — identified by cops as Michael McCloskey, 42 — didn’t say a single word before he allegedly plunged the knife into Salvatore.

“He didn’t say anything,” he said. “The detectives asked if I bumped into him or said anything to him and I said, ‘No, nothing, I didn’t see this guy at all, I was just minding my own business reading a book.'”

Salvatore was knocked to the ground in the attack and tried to crawl away as McCloskey, who gripped his victim’s sweatshirt, allegedly stabbed him again and again.

“I finally broke away from him, I broke the hold, and there was blood everywhere.”

He ran into the Dunkin’ Donuts right behind where he had been sitting and shocked customers handed him napkins to try to stop the blood that was “pouring out” from his neck, he said.

Cops quickly came to Salvatore’s aid and cuffed his attacker before EMTs took over and placed him in an ambulance.

“I started going out, getting lightheaded, because of all the blood I lost,” he said, noting the pain level was also intense.

When he arrived at the hospital, about “20 doctors and nurses” surrounded him.

“They brought me in, cleaned me up, doctor stitched me up,” Salvatore told The Post. “The doctor said I’m doing fine. She said it was amazing.”

The victim, who is Christian, said he believes God was with him during the stabbing.

“I’ve got two lines here, slash marks, but it never penetrated,” he said pointing to cuts on his neck. “I’m thinking the Lord pushed [McCloskey’s] hand away from me.

“A detective told me if one cut was a little lower and deeper, I’m bleeding out. I am very fortunate.”

The dad of two daughters and one son, all in their 20s, said he never expected something like Monday’s random attack to happen to him.

But hearing of other straphangers’ horror stories and now becoming a victim himself, he said the city needs to do better in treating its mentally ill — even noting that he feels bad for his attacker.

“The guy was probably very mentally disturbed, I feel sorry for the guy, but he needs to be kept locked up so he doesn’t do this to anyone else — if he’s that deranged,” Salvatore said.

“There is a problem with the mentally ill — you see them in Port Authority, Penn Station, on the streets, talking to themselves. Something needs to be done. It’s very unsafe here in New York City.”

That said, the New Jersey resident said he’ll still take public transportation to work.

“All we can do is stay alert.”