The Man Who Surfed a Skyscraper: Pasquale Buzzelli's Impossible 9/11 Survival Story

A Day Like Any Other

For Pasquale Buzzelli, a structural engineer for the Port Authority, September 11, 2001, began as a routine day. He was at his desk on the 64th floor of the World Trade Center's North Tower when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the building just floors above him. After the impact, he began to evacuate, but his descent was slow. By the time he reached the 22nd floor, he and a group of others encountered firefighters who advised them to wait for assistance. It was a decision that would place him at the heart of the tower's catastrophic failure.

The Point of No Return

As they waited, the world outside their window turned to ash and smoke when the South Tower collapsed. A sense of dread filled the air. Buzzelli made a final, frantic call to his pregnant wife, Louise. He managed to say goodbye and tell her he loved her just as the building around him began to give way.

I was saying my good-byes. I was saying, ‘I love you, Louise. I love you, little baby.’ Then the building gave. I’d say it was like a freight train, but it was louder. The floor is giving out. The ceiling is coming down.

The North Tower was collapsing. Pasquale Buzzelli, huddled in a corner on the 22nd floor, braced for the inevitable. He curled into a fetal position as the floor beneath him disintegrated.

The Impossible Fall

What happened next defies belief. Buzzelli wasn't in a classic free-fall through open air. Instead, he found himself on what he would later describe as a 'concrete sled,' surfing the debris as the 110-story skyscraper pancaked beneath him. He was propelled downwards in a chaotic cascade of concrete, steel, and office furniture. The descent was violent and disorienting.

It felt like being on a roller-coaster ride, the way you get lifted out of your seat. That’s what it felt like, but you were getting slammed down. Slammed down. Things were hitting me. Concrete. Big, small. Just stuff. It was dark, and you’re getting hit with all this stuff. Then the wind. I felt this incredible wind. My eyes were closed the whole time.

He was inside a pocket of space, shielded from being crushed but subjected to the unimaginable forces of the building's collapse. After a fall that lasted mere seconds but felt like an eternity, he landed with crushing force onto a mountain of debris.

Waking in the Rubble

Pasquale awoke hours later, entombed in darkness and covered in dust and soot. He was in excruciating pain, his right foot shattered, but he was alive. He had fallen approximately 15 stories and landed on the rubble pile that was once the tower's lower floors. Nearby, he could hear the cries of another survivor, his colleague Genelle Guzman-McMillan, who had been with him on the 22nd floor. They were among a tiny handful of people to survive being above the impact zone of a collapsing tower. After four hours trapped in the wreckage, firefighters found him. A photo of his dust-caked face as he was carried out on a stretcher became one of the haunting images of the day. His survival, against all scientific and logical odds, remains one of the most incredible stories to emerge from the tragedy of September 11th. Months later, he and Louise welcomed their daughter, a symbol of hope born from a day of immense loss.

Sources

• The Miracle of Stairwell B - Nymag
• 9/11 survivor recalls falling 22 stories - CNN
• 'I was the last person rescued from the rubble of the Twin Towers' - The Guardian