He tried to save a life, and paid with his own.
A hardworking father of two, who was about to get engaged to his girlfriend, was stabbed to death trying to rescue a young family friend from a pack of bloodthirsty teenage thugs on a Bronx street, cops said.
“For saving his life, we’re going to take yours now,” one of the attackers allegedly told Orlando Salgado, 26, before coldly plunging a knife into the good Samaritan’s chest, said his heartbroken girlfriend, Reinalice Roman.
The unidentified 16-year-old boy was standing on East 197th Street near Webster Avenue at 10:30 p.m. Friday when he was confronted by a group of thugs that he fought with earlier in the day, cops said.
Salgado — a neighbor and friend of the boy’s mother — was on his way to get something to eat when he came upon the confrontation.
He stepped into the melee to protect the boy and was stabbed twice in the chest as one of the attackers allegedly made the grim promise to kill him for intervening, cops and Roman said.
The construction worker was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The boy he gave his life for was uninjured.
“He was just looking after that kid, and they had to take his life, all for nothing,” said Roman, the mother of Salgado’s 6-month-old daughter, Skylynn.
The slain man also has a 6-year-old daughter from a previous relationship.
“I saw a group of kids running,” Roman recalled of the night of the murder. “And then a few minutes later, I saw a kid coming running and screaming, ‘Orlando! Orlando! Somebody stabbed Orlando.”
Roman ran around the corner and saw her boyfriend of two years lying on the ground bleeding.
“I just held his hand and covered his wound. I just tried to stop the blood,” she said.
Roman discovered yesterday that Salgado was saving to buy her an engagement ring.
“Now it’s all gone. My daughter will ask me where her dad is at, and what will I tell her?” she asked.
The 16-year-old’s mother — who wouldn’t give her name because she fears retaliation — said she will be forever grateful to Salgado.
“All my life, I don’t know how to pay him back. He was a hardworking man. He was like my brother. He didn’t need to die like that,” she said.
She begged for the police to find the attackers and bring them to justice.
“I want them to pay for what they did,” she said.
Greg Staff, Salgado’s boss, said of the hardhat: “Whether it was pushing a broom or putting up walls, he took the same pride in everything.”