In a mesmerizing interview, Pasquale Buzzelli told internet celebrity Joe Budden about ‘surfing’ down 22 floors on 9/11 as the building plummeted around him into a concrete slab.
As his elevator rose, he recalled, he felt the floor drop several feet. To find out what was wrong, he asked his wife Louise to turn on the TV. Louise heard that a jet had crashed into the North Tower.
Buzzelli ran for the stairs to freedom.
The building began to tremble and shake as they ascended to the 22nd story, and he described a “tremendous pounding noise” that he likened to a freight train.
He curled in a ball and tried to make himself as small as possible in the corner. Miraculously, he rode the building to the ground and survived.
Buzzelli lost 14 coworkers in the tower collapse and felt terrible about escaping with only a damaged leg and ankle.
Meanwhile, the BBC was interviewing a man outside just as the North Tower collapsed behind him.
A TikTok account posted the video yesterday with over 41,000 followers and has since had over 215K views.
The clip from the BBC features an interview with a man speaking with a British accent in New York City in what he believes to be the aftermath of the World Trade Center devastation.
The man explains that a witness reported seeing a plane crash into one of the twin buildings. He says an hour later, there was that other massive explosion from way down deep. He explains that it is a mystery what set that off.
He says what gets to him is the enormity of the tragedy, so massive that many people nearby can’t even comprehend what’s happened.
Then, the people around him start screaming, and someone yells, “It’s going!”
People run for cover.
The camera then moves upward to reveal the now-iconic but terrifying image of the North Tower’s floors collapsing one after the other, pancaking to the ground.
Someone can be heard shouting, “Oh my god,” followed by, “We’ve got to go!”
Just as a viewer of this clip can become transfixed, this is what has happened in “real life.” While some people are turning to run, others are frozen by the awful and, as time would show, historically significant events taking place right in front of their eyes.
Thousands died that day.
