9/11 survivor describes the feeling of falling 22 stories as building collapsed
A man who survived the 9/11 attacks has his described his incredible survival story in a powerful interview.
Pasquale Buzzelli, who became known as the '9/11 surfer', arrived at work on the morning of 11 September, 2001 in the North Tower of the World Trade Center when a plane struck the building.
Buzzelli, like the rest of the world, had no idea of the horror that would unfold that fateful Tuesday, or how he would become one of the survivors.
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He sat down with internet personality Joe Budden to speak about his miraculous survival story.
He worked on the 64th floor and the first sign of trouble came when he rode the elevator up to work but felt the structure drop several feet.
Once he arrived at his desk, Buzzelli called his wife, Louise, and asked her to turn the TV on to see what was wrong. Louise was horrified when she saw reports about a plane flying into the North Tower.
With his fellow office workers, Buzzelli attempted to escape through a stairwell. By the time they reached the 22nd floor, the building had started to rumble and shake and a 'tremendous pounding noise' he compared to the sound of a freight train.
All Buzzelli had was a briefcase as the building continued shaking. Fearing that debris was about to fall through the staircase, Buzzelli made a leap of faith.
He explained: “I look back and I dove from basically the middle of [the] stairs.
"I just took a couple of steps and I jumped and I landed on that intermittent platform landing and I just put myself right into the corner and I curled up and tried to make myself as small as possible in the corner there thinking whatever’s falling through, there was nothing to protect me other than the floor below me and the two walls that I can get into a corner on, so I just kind of curled up.
“I had nowhere to run.”
The ‘freight train’ sound was the noise of the floors from above collapsing and ‘pancaking’.
When Buzzelli felt the wall next to him ‘crack’ and the ‘floor start to give’ his thoughts turned to his wife and daughter.
“I can’t believe this is how I die,” he remembered thinking as he fell while on a slab of concrete he 'surfed' as the building collapsed.
“I’m on this sub but it broke away and I’m kind of like free falling, getting knocked around, getting hit… I see flashes of light from getting hit in the head, you know, some even say you see stars."
“I was getting knocked around in the head, my back. I just stayed tucked in. This is all happening quick. All those thoughts are going through my head and then I see one big boom. Flash,” he added.
Buzzelli lost 14 colleagues who were with him when the tower collapsed. He described feeling a sense of guilt after he made it out of the tower with a broken leg and ankle.
The horrendous terrorist attacks in New York City claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people. The city was forever changed and life shifted drastically for those who survived.
Gregory Robinson