Erin Marie Pucino doesn’t know who snatched her from the jaws of death in the Rhode Island nightclub inferno.
But to her, she was holding on for dear life to the hand of God.
Blinded by smoke and crushed by the weight of the crowd fleeing the flames inside The Station club Thursday night, Pucino thought she would surely die.
“I couldn’t breathe because of all the smoke. I kept thinking, ‘I’m going to pass out right here,'” Pucino told The Post from her home in nearby North Kingstown.
“I can’t breathe and I’m thinking ‘nobody’s going to get me out and I’m never going to see my son.’ “
Fireworks set off during the first song by metal band Great White triggered the tragic nightclub blaze that killed 96 people. Band guitarist Ty Longley remained among the missing.
Twenty-five people were in intensive care, and 19 of the 81 people hospitalized had been transferred to Massachusetts hospitals for specialized care. An investigation is also under way into the fire.
Pucino, 25, battling back tears, described in heartbreaking detail the horrific disaster.
She said that in those frantic moments, she had been pressed against the front of the nightclub. Smoke was passing over her head, and intense heat was pushing her and the crowd from behind.
“There was so many people on top of each other. Everybody was pinned together,” said Pucino, as tears streamed down her face. “Most people got stuck at the front door. People were jumping over us trying to get out.”
Helplessly hanging halfway out the door, two girls tried pulling Pucino out – but they didn’t have the strength.
That’s when a man, a nameless savior to Pucino, grabbed her hand. “I said, ‘Please keep trying, I think I’m moving,’ ” she remembered.
She managed to move her legs and was quickly pulled out and escaped without a scratch. Her friends Tammy and Laurie also miraculously escaped, but with serious burns.
Pucino said she had arrived at the club about 15 minutes before Great White took the stage. She and her friends, who had already arrived, had gotten free tickets from Pucino’s boss.
As the band began their doomed set, she said there was a great push forward.
“They were playing not even a minute and then you could see the flame,” she said “The back of the wall caught on fire. The pyrotechnics were shooting off. It was little flames at first.
“I figured someone would turn around, grab a fire extinguisher and shoot it and they’ll probably just clear the club.
“[But] I hesitated, I just stood there and waited. Not everybody noticed the flames. The band didn’t know the wall had come on fire.”
Just a minute later, the terrified crowd was running for their lives.
“People got stuck in the bathroom. Others got trampled,” Pucino said.
“Right after we fell, smoke caught up to us. Billows of black smoke were coming out the front door,” she said. “I glanced up at one point and saw the flames coming out the front door over us. We were in the middle of a pile of people.”
A short distance away from Pucino, her friend Laurie Hussey, 30, was trapped in another heap of humanity.
Hussey was pushed forward during the surge toward the exit, and landed on another girl – a fall that saved her life.
“Her boyfriend couldn’t get her out without pulling me out,” Hussey said from her bed at a hospital in Warwick, where she has second-degree burns all over her body from the melted ceiling that fell during her miraculous escape.
“I don’t think I could have gone on without her,” said Hussey’s mom, Patricia.
Yet for Pucino, survivor’s guilt has already started to set in.
“One minute you think, thank God I got out. The next minute you think about 96 that didn’t,” she said. “And then you think of all the families.”
Pucino – who has a 5-year-old son named Sterling – wants to meet the mystery man who saved her life.
“If it wasn’t for that man,” she said. “If he didn’t listen to me when I said, ‘Please keep pulling, I think I’m moving,’ if he had let go of me, I wouldn’t have gotten out.”
Meanwhile, Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri said that all bodies had been found, allaying fears that rain and mud would hamper recovery.
“We’re pretty well convinced there are no additional bodies there,” he said.
Officials named seven more people who were killed in the blaze. All were from Rhode Island or Massachusetts.
The “vast majority” of victims could be identified through medical records and Carcieri urged dentists to check their messages for records requests from the family members.
An investigation is under way to determine who, if anyone, will face state criminal charges for the scores of deaths and injuries.
“There could be a whole menu of charges,” Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch said. “It could be manslaughter. It could be murder. It could be simple assault.”
Also at issue was whether the band had permission to set off the pyrotechnic display that incinerated the club.
“No permission was ever requested by the band or its agents to use pyrotechnics at The Station, and no permission was ever given,” said Kathleen Hagerty, a lawyer for owners Michael and Jeffrey Derderian.
Great White’s singer, Jack Russell, and Dan Biechele, the band’s manager, both got oral permission to set off the fireworks, insisted Ed McPherson, the band’s lawyer. With Post Wire Services
TRAGIC NUMBERS
The Rhode Island nightclub disaster toll, the fourth-worst club tragedy in U.S. history:
* Dead: 96
* Hospitalized: 81
* Intensive care: 19
* Dead named: 7. two more have been identified but their names have not been released.
* Missing: None. Officials believe they found all the bodies. It isn’t known whether Great White guitarist Ty Longley has been identified yet.