NEW YORK — Former NXIVM official Lauren Salzman on Tuesday emotionally recounted Keith Raniere’s March 2018 arrest in a Mexican fishing village — and her astonishment that the self-help guru attempted to hide in a closet as armed officers raided their residence.

Her voice shaking, Salzman said that officers in bulletproof vests kicked open their bedroom door and leveled four machine guns at her head.

On the stand in a federal courtroom in Brooklyn, she said her instinct in what she considered a life-or-death situation was to protect Raniere — her mentor, former lover and “grandmaster” of NXIVM’s secretive “master/slave” group.

Raniere’s response, however, was to hide in the walk-in closet.

“It never occurred to me that I would choose Keith — and Keith would choose Keith,” Salzman testified.

As Salzman spoke Tuesday, Raniere stared at her from the defense table, chin resting on his fist. The 58-year-old NXIVM co-founder and former Halfmoon resident wore a beige sweater over a light-colored shirt.

Salzman said she learned over the course of her two decades in NXIVM and its assorted programs that men were built to act in such situations, and that women supposedly could not.

But when tested in Mexico, she explained, the man known within the group as “Vanguard” failed to practice what he preached.

“Everything he taught us was this … what men do, what women do,” Salzman said. “And then he didn’t do it — and I did do it.”

She said the Mexican officers who surrounded their residence said they were acting on behalf of federal investigators in the Eastern District of New York, where she was testifying this week at Raniere’s trial on racketeering, conspiracy, sex trafficking and forced labor charges.

Salzman’s account of Raniere’s arrest came on a day when she also tearfully expressed guilt over her role in keeping a young Mexican immigrant woman isolated in an upstairs room at a Halfmoon residence for two years.