One of the 12 people shot during a deadly gang shooting at a Brooklyn block party said Sunday that the bullet felt like “hot steel” when it tore into his back – and dramatically described telling himself, “I can’t die like this.”

In an exclusive interview from his hospital bed, retiree Anthony Davis told The Post that he was about to leave the annual “Old Timers Day” event in Brownsville’s Mendoza Park when he heard a young woman say, “They are starting their stuff now.”

“Before anyone could take one step, [a gunman] let off eight shots – pop, pop, pop,” he said. “As soon as I heard the shots I turned my back to go the other way.”

But before he could escape the hail of gunfire, Davis got cut down.

“I got hit in my back. It felt like it was hot steel in my back burning,” he said.

“At first I couldn’t feel nothing in my legs for five to ten seconds when I hit the ground. I was afraid because I thought this was the end.

“I told myself, I can’t die like this. I got up. I stumbled against the fence. I told the officers that I got shot but they were on the other side of the fence.”

While waiting for help, Davis said, he gave his cell phone to a friend to call his family.

“The officers came through the gate to assist me. They put pressure on the wound to stop it from bleeding,” he said.

“The whole of the back of my shirt was covered in blood – my T-shirt and the shirt I was wearing over it.”

Davis recalled the scene around him as “chaotic.”

“People were running and screaming. Multiple people were getting shot because they were falling over each other,” he said.

Davis spoke from a bed in the emergency room at Brookdale Hospital, where he was rushed for treatment after being shot around 11 p.m. Saturday.

Law-enforcement sources have said that two shooters opened fire with 9-mm. and 40-caliber pistols, killing reputed Bloods gang member, Jason Pagan, and injuring 11 people, including Davis.

Investigators suspect the gunfire may have been the result of a booze-fueled fight between rival gangs, and were investigating whether Pagan was one of the shooters, sources have said.

Davis said doctors tried in vain to remove the slug that hit him, which was still lodged “somewhere in my body.”

“They told me they are gonna give it a week or two to locate it,” he said.

Davis said he was “happy to be alive.”

“Dead man tells no tales,” he said.

“I’m happy that it wasn’t worse. I am in pain but they gave me medication for the pain.”

Davis said the shooters “should be punished,” adding that he hoped they “really understand the damage they did to the community and the event when they are really not old-timers themselves.”

“The young adults today don’t understand the meaning of Old Timers Day. They think it is the day for them to smoke weed and have their liquor and be free – no restrictions,” he said.

Another shooting victim, Dominique Joseph, 25, was recuperating at home in Red Hook with a gunshot wound to her left wrist, a graze across her lower back and a bullet fragment in her right hip that doctors said would work its way out on its own.

“I saw a big spark and I knew to run. I heard more than 5 shots before I fell down. I was shot three times,” she said.

“They must have been shooting right near me.”

Joseph said that when the shots rang out, “everyone ran, but I fell right when I was hit. It took the cops a little while to get in the park.”

“I was with my cousin. He came over and said, ‘Get up and let’s go!’ And I said, ‘I’m shot!’ He got me up and we ran away from the shots,” she said.

“A cop told us to stand where we were by the fence and the EMTs came.”

Additional reporting by Kevin Sheehan and Bruce Golding