Port Authority Bus Terminal straphanger stabbed 8 times in neck, arm, needs 46 stitches after maniac strikes: ‘I should be dead’
An unhinged maniac stabbed a commuter in a random attack outside a Manhattan bus terminal Monday – as the victim railed that “something needs to be done” about Big Apple crime.
Boonton, New Jersey dad Daniel Salvatore told The Post he was lucky to be alive after he was stabbed eight times in the neck and arm while he sat reading a book at just before 6 a.m. outside the Port Authority bus terminal in Midtown.
“The Lord saved me. I should be dead,” Salvatore — whose 66th birthday is Tuesday — said in an interview from his hospital bed after getting 46 stitches.
“A detective told me if one cut was a little lower and deeper, I’m bleeding out. I am very fortunate.”
Salvatore, who was on his way to a job downtown, said he was leafing through “I Cheerfully Refuse” by Leif Enger when attacker Michael McCloskey, 42, sensenslessly stabbed him in plain view of Port Authority police.
“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 the sudden the knife went in my neck,” Salvatore said.
“He didn’t saying anything,” he added. “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 managed to break free from the attack and stumble into a nearby Dunkin Donuts, where he struggled to stemthe flow of blood pouring from his neck with napkins that a few customers passed to him. Police eventually arrived and helped treat him as he fought for consciousness.
“The police were great, they were fantastic,” Salvatore said, adding praise for EMTs who arrived and later the Bellevue Hospital staff who helped stitch him up.
“The Lord was with me. I am a Christian. In all things give thanks. I know he was right there with me,” Salvatore said.
Despite stabbing him nearly to death, Salvatore feels bad for whatever mental problems his attacker might be suffering from – but still thinks he belongs behind bars so he can’t harm others.
“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.
“There is a problem with the mentally ill – you see them in Port Authority, Penn Station, on the streets, taking to themselves,” he went on. “Something needs to be done. It’s very unsafe here in New York City.”
Charges were pending later Monday against McCloskey, from the city of Watsonville, California – but he is expected to face raps for attempted murder, first-degree assault and weapon possession, the sources said.
Authorities in California have a warrant out for him, the sources said, but details of that case were not immediately known.
The attack left Salvatore shaken the evening before his birthday but he was happy to come out alive.
“I should have been dead,” he said “I got 46 stitches and I’m very thankful I’m still here.”
The incident was one of several troubling attacks Monday.
A 44-year-old woman working as an MTA cleaner was sprayed with an unknown substance on board a Bronx train, cops said.
The victim was cleaning the train car inside the Van Cortlandt Park–242nd Street station around 3:50 a.m. Monday when another woman unloaded the spray — causing pain, redness and swelling to her face, police said.
The worker was taken to a local hospital, where she was described as conscious and alert.
The attacker, described as a woman with a dark complexion, last seen wearing a dark-colored hoodie and blue jeans, fled the scene and had not been caught by later Monday.
In another unrelated act of violence, a 56-year-old man was slashed by a dog-walker in a broad-daylight attack in Hell’s Kitchen Monday, cops said.
The victim was cut across the stomach with a sharp object around 1:20 p.m. on West 54th Street near Ninth Avenue, authorities said.
The victim was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition.
The suspect, described as a male in his 50s who was walking a small dog, took off after the slashing, police said.
The motive for the violence remains under investigation.
