Sgt. Hameed Armani, right, and Officer Peter Cybulski, left, feared for their lives when Hector Meneses threw a fake bomb into their NYPD van, they said. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Trevor Kapp

TIMES SQUARE — When a man tossed what appeared to be a bomb into their NYPD van in the middle of Times Square, two police officers only had a few seconds to decide what to do.

Sgt. Hameed Armani, a 10-year veteran of the force, didn't even consider hopping out of the car and running for his life, as many might have done.

"The light went off, started blinking. I looked around and saw a lot of kids, a lot of young people, a lot of people out there in Times Square," said Armani, who has a 12-year-old daughter and originally hails from Afghanistan.

"We looked at each other, I was like, ‘We’re gonna go, but I’m not going to have anybody else go with us.’ The lights were on the car, we drove as fast as possible trying to get away from Duffy Square."

Armani flipped on his sirens and peeled out of Duffy Square to head east on 46th Street as Officer Peter Cybulski, a 3-year veteran, nervously cupped the device in his hands.

“He was yelling at me, ‘Boss, what are we doing?’ We’re driving. We’re driving. We said our prayers. I said, ‘If it happens, it happens, but I’m not going to stop here,'” Armani said.

►READ MORE: Suicidal Man Who Threw Fake Bomb at Police in Midtown Ends 6-Hour Standoff

The pair, who'd worked in the 75th Precinct for two years before transferring to Times Square in early 2016, stopped at Sixth Avenue and gingerly brought out the device, officials said.

"I saw there were not a lot of people, I took the device and placed it on the sidewalk. As we’re driving, that 30 seconds or minute, we both said our prayers. We thought, ‘This is it, we’re not going to make it, but I’m happy no one else is going to get hurt,'" Armani said.

To their relief, the NYPD's bomb squad came and declared the device was a "hoax" bomb made by a suicidal man named Hector Meneses, 52, of Elmhurst, police said.

Investigators later tracked Meneses down to Columbus Circle about 2:40 a.m., where he refused to leave his SUV and threatened to kill himself with a bomb, sparking a six-hour standoff, police said.

Police took Meneses into custody once they realized he didn't have any explosives on him, officials said.

NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton praised Armani and Cybulski in a press conference at the scene Thursday morning.

“At great risk to their own lives at that time, believing they’re at great risk, they did not exit the vehicle and attempt to flee it. Instead, they made the conscious decision to move that police vehicle out of Times Square, to get it away from the huge crowds in the square, putting their own lives at risk," Bratton said.

"I cannot emphasize how proud I am of them,” he added.

Armani, for his part, was immensely relieved once the whole thing finished.

"I was happy no one got hurt. I was happy. It's a good day," he said. "If I had to do it all over again, I'd do it again."