A 19-year-old Italian tourist was ambushed by a knife-wielding thug as she headed to a party on the Upper East Side – but she managed to disarm the attacker by grabbing his blade with her bare hands and wrestling it away, police said yesterday.

Carolina Ottone, 19, of Como, was at Lexington Avenue and 86th Street at about 11:30 p.m. Monday, when the brutal stranger approached her near a pharmacy.

He had been following her for about two blocks.

“He took his knife outside his pocket and grabbed me from behind,” she told The Post.

Then the thug put his left arm around Ottone’s throat. But he picked the wrong victim because the fiery Italian teen bravely fought back.

“The only thing I could do in that moment was to try to grab the knife and try to push him away,” she said.

She put her hand on the blade and pulled it out of his grasp, disregarding the searing pain.

“I’m just 19, I didn’t want to die,” she told The Post. “I just did what my instincts made me do. I preferred to be without fingers instead of dying.”

Ottone said she put a strong grip on the knife “to make sure he wouldn’t slash my throat.”

“I really hurt myself. I had surgery for that, not just stitches.”

She said that she then tussled with the creep, and eventually wound up tumbling into a pile of garbage. Luckily, the attacker had had enough of her resistance, and fled.

She doesn’t know why she was targeted, but fears that the assailant had something on his mind other than robbery.

“He didn’t steal anything from me,” she said. “I had a purse in my hand. I guess it wasn’t his intention to steal anything.”

She said the thug whispered something in her ear, but she doesn’t know what he said.

Ottone tried to flag down passing cars, but none would stop. But a doorman from a nearby building came to her aid.

“He saw everything, and he helped me, and after 15 minutes, the police came,” she said.

She was treated at Lenox Hill Hospital.

“I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore,” she said. “I was afraid and in shock. I was almost killed.”

Ottone has been in the United States since April and was staying at the Upper East Side home of friend Julia Fox, whom she met in Italy.

Fox’s father, Thomas, later went to the scene of the crime and obtained a video from the pharmacy that shows the attack taking place. He said he is unhappy with the way that the police have handled the investigation and believes they did not take it seriously at first.

An NYPD spokesman said cops are “working with the victim to solve the crime.”

john.doyle

@nypost.com