This is the face of bravery.
The off-duty NYPD detective who was hacked in the head by a cleaver-swinging maniac outside Penn Station received a hero’s salute from his fellow officers Friday as he was wheeled out of the hospital.
Detective Brian O’Donnell wore his new badge of honor with stoic grace: a massive scar stretching forehead-to-chin down the left side of his face.
The gash, which required 70 stitches to close, caused nerve damage, sources told The Post.
O’Donnell will be back in the hospital in about a week to be re-evaluated for nerve repair treatment, one source said.
“He will probably be scarred for life,” the source said.
Meanwhile, disturbing details emerged painting the alleged attacker as an unhinged, knife-loving homeless man with 15 prior arrests, and whom the United States was trying to deport.
Akram Joudeh, 32, is a Palestinian with a Jordanian passport who lived in his Nissan Altima and has at least three arrests involving knives, sources told The Post.
His latest arrest, on July 27, came after he allegedly parked outside a Brooklyn synagogue with two knives behind the passenger seat.
He allegedly got out of the car and started shouting “Allahu Akbar.”
Brooklyn prosecutors declined to prosecute Joudeh, one source said, despite his record of possessing and menacing with knives — including a
January 2010 bust for allegedly waving a blade and threatening to kill a 24-year-old store employee in Queens.
“The NYPD went back to the DA and said ‘You guys are out of your mind,’ ” the source told The Post.
Joudeh eventually was charged, but the case was dismissed and sealed. A DA spokesperson declined to comment, citing the sealing order.
“The Brooklyn DA completely dropped the ball,” given his history, the police source said.
More than 100 NYPD officers gathered at Bellevue Hospital to cheer O’Donnell as he was wheeled to the front entrance, family at his side.
He waved and gave a single, “Thank you,” then stood up from the chair and walked without assistance to a waiting car.
The 16-year police veteran was headed to Penn Station Thursday to catch an LIRR train home after his 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. shift at the 19th Precinct on the Upper East Side when he crossed paths with Joudeh.
Joudeh had been trying to use a lug wrench to pry a boot off the front wheel of his Altima at West 30th Street and Broadway, according to a video obtained by NBC New York.
When passing cops tried to stop him, Joudeh allegedly swung his cleaver at them, then started running.
Cops were chasing Joudeh near Seventh Avenue and 32nd Street when O’Donnell joined in the pursuit, tackling the madman and getting sliced in the head and hands.
Thursday’s mayhem ended when officers fired a hail of bullets into Joudeh, critically wounding him. He is recovering at Bellevue Hospital.
“He is remarkably in good shape today as he walked out the door. Of course he has a very deep laceration,” Detectives Endowment Association president Michael Palladino said of O’Donnell at the hospital Friday.
“Here is someone running down the street with a meat cleaver and that means that there is thousands of potential victims in harm’s way, so that’s why he thought that it was imperative that he get involved and he engaged this individual,” Palladino said.
O’Donnell “has a reputation that precedes him as someone who likes to get involved. This is a true example [of] you are never really off duty in this city,” he said.
O’Donnell underwent one surgery and future surgeries are a “possibility” because the extent of the damage is not yet known, according to Palladino.
A cop who works with O’Donnell described him as “a great guy, a great detective . . . [what he did] it makes us proud.” Another colleague called O’Donnell “one of the best.”
Newly minted NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill said Friday that O’Donnell’s decision to intervene was a “choice he didn’t have to make” since he was off-duty.
“And he ended up, really receiving a very bad slash wound to his face. He’s going to recover. But, you know, it’s men like him, women like him that make this city great and make us all safe,” said O’Neill.
Additional reporting by Kenneth Garger and Larry Celona
