Pasquale Buzzelli was inside the North Tower of the World Trade Center when it was struck by a hijacked plane on September 11, 2001 – he plunged 15 storeys as the building collapsed and woke up in the rubble with nothing but a broken foot09:28, 11 Sep 2026Perhaps one of the most haunting photographs ever taken shows a lone figure falling through the sky above New York on September 11, 2001.‌Known as the "Falling Man", the image was captured by Associated Press photographer Richard Drew at 9:41am, just minutes before the North Tower of the World Trade Centre collapsed. The man's identity has never been conclusively established, but the photograph has become one of the most enduring images of the 9/11 attacks.‌Yet while thousands were killed inside the towers that morning, a small number of people somehow survived the unimaginable destruction.‌Among them was Pasquale Buzzelli, a structural engineer who was heading towards his office on the 64th floor of the North Tower when the first plane struck. He would later become known as the "9/11 Surfer" after surviving a fall of at least 15 floors as the building collapsed around him.Pasquale was one of just 16 people rescued alive from the rubble of the World Trade Centre towers. Astonishingly, his physical injuries were limited to minor burns and a fractured bone in one foot."When you start to think about the numbers, it doesn't really seem possible that I'm alive.", reports the Daily Star.‌Speaking to 60 Minutes Australia, Pasquale recalled the terrifying moments after American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 hijacked by Mohamed Atta, crashed into the North Tower.His wife Louise was seven months pregnant with their child and was at their home in Rivervale, New Jersey, watching the unfolding disaster on television.‌Pasquale managed to call her shortly after the impact, unaware at first that the crash had been a deliberate act of terrorism."I called [my wife] and I said, 'Louise', I 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 goes,...'Oh my God'... she goes, 'a plane hit your building'."Pasquale was initially convinced the crash had been a terrible accident.‌He and the other people in his lift gathered what they could before making their way towards the stairs."We gathered everything,...a flashlight, [and] we wet down some towels and stuff, and we started our way down the stairs."They encountered a firefighter climbing upwards towards the inferno, who told them to continue making their way down to the ground.‌Pasquale still had his briefcase with him as he descended, but everything changed when the group reached the 22nd floor."And then, we went down maybe a couple more flights and it was, on the 22nd floor that all of a sudden, you know, everything started to shake..‌"I heard screaming, you know, people behind me screaming, and then, just everything went dark."The building started to shake violently. I heard all this... the loud rumbling from above, I dove into a corner, and I got into a foetal position, and just buried myself up against a corner, so if anything large or heavy was falling, at least I had two sides that could protect me."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."‌By then, the South Tower had already collapsed. The North Tower was moments away from suffering the same fate.As the 110-storey building disintegrated, Pasquale remained curled up in the corner.He later described the sensation as an "abrasive, sandblaster type feeling" as the concrete floor beneath him fractured and gave way.‌He was plunged down at least 15 floors, somehow remaining trapped in a small pocket of the collapsing structure.For around two hours, he lay buried beneath the rubble before eventually regaining consciousness.‌Pasquale began shouting for help and, remarkably, his voice was heard by firefighters searching through the devastation.One firefighter alerted his colleagues: "Holy s***, guys, we have a civilian up there."But Pasquale's ordeal was not over.‌Another fire broke out close to where he was trapped, leaving him terrified that he would be burned alive before rescuers could reach him. At one point, he even considered finding something sharp with which to take his own life.Then firefighters managed to clear a path through the wreckage and reach the 6'2", 19-stone engineer.As they carried him from the ruins, one of the firefighters remarked: "Man, you are a heavy f***. What's your name?"‌Pasquale's fractured foot took several months to recover, but the psychological impact of what happened that morning would last far longer.Michael Morabito, one of the New York firefighters who helped discover Pasquale in the rubble, later described his survival as a "miracle".‌"It was amazing," he told Channel 4 New York, "especially the way he was sitting. The sky was blue and he was just untouched in all that destruction."It's gotta be a miracle. Someone was watching over him. He needed to make it home. "For Louise, however, Pasquale's miraculous return home did not mean the nightmare was over.‌She 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."Pasquale subsequently battled PTSD and survivors' guilt before eventually returning to his career as an engineer and raising his family in New Jersey.‌His story is an extraordinary example of survival from one of the darkest days in modern history, when almost everything around him was destroyed.A total of 2,996 people were killed in the September 11 attacks, including the 19 al-Qaeda terrorists responsible. Around 25,000 others were injured as a direct result.Article continues belowThe consequences have continued long after the towers fell. Exposure to toxic materials at Ground Zero has been linked to more than 100 different forms of cancer, contributing to thousands of illnesses and deaths in the decades since.For survivors, rescuers and their families, the physical and psychological consequences have also endured — meaning that for many, the events of September 11 did not end when the smoke cleared.