Pasquale Buzzelli, a structural engineer, survived a 15-storey fall when the World Trade Centre's North Tower collapsed on September 11, 2001. He is one of only 16 people rescued alive from the wreckage, and one of just two known to have survived a fall from the upper floors. His only physical injuries were minor burns and a broken bone in one foot.
A harrowing escape from the 64th floor
Buzzelli was travelling up to his office on the 64th floor when the first aircraft struck. His wife Louise, seven months pregnant at the time, was watching events on TV at their home in Rivervale, New Jersey. He called her and said, "Don't be alarmed, I'm okay, everything's fine, just, can you put the television on, and tell me what you see", and she replied, "Oh my God… a plane hit your building."
Buzzelli and others in the lift managed to get out and took to the stairs. "We gathered everything,…a flashlight, [and] we wet down some towels and stuff, and we started our way down the stairs." At that stage he still had his briefcase, imagining the crash was just a terrible accident. The group passed a firefighter on his way up, who told them to keep going down until they reached the ground floor.
Caught in the collapse
On the 22nd floor, everything began to shake. "I heard screaming, you know, people behind me screaming, and then, just everything went dark." He dove into a corner and curled into a foetal position. "I felt the wall that I was laying next to, just crack and the floor give away, and I stayed tucked in the foetal position with my eyes closed."
As the building collapsed around him, Buzzelli recalls an "abrasive, sandblaster type feeling". The concrete floor beneath him cracked and crumbled, sending him at least 15 floors down to where he was eventually found in the shattered remnants of the 110-storey building. He regained consciousness some two hours later, cried for help, and a firefighter responded, telling colleagues: "Holy s***, guys, we have a civilian up there."
Rescue and aftermath
Before he could be rescued, another fire broke out around him. He briefly considered finding a sharp object to kill himself rather than be burned alive. A team of firefighters then cleared a path to where the 6'2", 19-stone engineer lay trapped. As they carried him to safety, one said: "Man, you are a heavy f***. What's your name?"
Michael Morabito, one of the New York firemen who found him, called it a "miracle": "It was amazing, especially the way he was sitting. The sky was blue and he was just untouched in all that destruction." He added: "It's gotta be a miracle. Someone was watching over him. He needed to make it home."
Louise Buzzelli told New York Magazine: "People think it ended when my husband walked through the door alive. That's when it began for us. You can't understand why you feel so bad when you should feel so elated. You can't make sense of anything."
Long-term impact
For many years Buzzelli struggled with PTSD and survivors' guilt, but he eventually returned to work as an engineer, raising his family in New Jersey. In total, 2,996 people are known to have lost their lives on that day, including 19 al-Qaeda terrorists, and some 25,000 were injured. Exposure to hazardous materials at Ground Zero has been linked to more than 100 different types of cancer, resulting in thousands of illnesses and deaths that continue to unfold decades later.
