A woman stabbed 40 times by a stranger wielding a rusty steak knife miraculously survived – despite the blade piercing her heart.

Alyssa Wilcynski, 35, who lives in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the Bronx, was attacked by an unknown man wielding a rusty knife as she entered her apartment complex.

The 35-year-old only survived the apparently random butchery after emergency open-heart surgery, as well as operations to repair her ravaged stomach and kidneys.

Her husband Patrick Sotomayor, 38, yesterday called for the capture of the attacker, telling the New York Post: ‘I want him off the street – he’s an animal.’

Ms Wilcynski had been returning home on the night of March 15 when, she said, a stranger followed her into the building, where she lives with her husband.

She had climbed almost to the sixth floor of the block of flats when the man set upon her with the corroded blade, repeatedly stabbing her all over her body.

Bravely, Ms Wilcynski tried to fight back by biting her assailant on his neck and his forearm.

He responded by battering her around her head with his fists.

‘It knocked me out for a split second,’ said Ms Wilcynski yesterday. ‘He must have thought I was dead.

‘I knew I was going to die.’

Ms Wilcynski’s life was saved after a neighbor found her lying in a pool of blood and knocked on the door of the couple’s flat to alert her husband.

Lifesavers: Medics at the nearby Lincoln Hospital carried out open-heart surgery on Ms Wilcynski, as well as operations on her stomach and kidney, to repair her ravaged body after the horrendous attack

Paramedics rushed the gravely injured woman to Lincoln Hospital, where surgeons rushed to repair the damage done to her internal organs.

She needed operations on her heart, stomach and kidneys.

After suffering such a savage attack, there is no information on Ms Wilcynski’s current condition – aside from the fact she defied her attacker by surviving the horrendous ordeal.

‘God was with me, because I didn’t die,’ she said.