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𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗖𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗗𝗼𝘄𝗻. 𝗛𝗲 𝗪𝗼𝗸𝗲 𝗨𝗽 𝗢𝗻 𝗧𝗼𝗽 𝗼𝗳 𝗜𝘁.Pasquale Buzzelli worked as an engineer for the Port Authority on the 64th floor of the North Tower.When evacuation became necessary on September 11, 2001, he joined coworkers moving down the stairwell.Floor after floor passed beneath them.By the time Buzzelli reached approximately the 22nd floor, something changed.The building began to shake.𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗹𝗲Buzzelli later described a tremendous noise.He threw himself toward the corner of a stairwell landing, curled his body inward and covered himself as best he could.There was nowhere else to go.Then the North Tower collapsed.Buzzelli remembered flashes and falling.Then nothing.The exact mechanics of what happened to him during the collapse can never be reconstructed with certainty. Later accounts described him as the “9/11 Surfer” because he apparently fell with a section of the collapsing structure rather than simply being crushed beneath it.One detailed later account placed the fall at roughly 18 stories.𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗛𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀 𝗟𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿Buzzelli regained consciousness hours later.The stairwell was gone.The tower was gone.And somehow, he was lying high on a pile of debris in the open air.He had survived.His injuries included a broken foot along with comparatively minor burns and abrasions, an outcome almost impossible to reconcile with what had happened around him.At home, his pregnant wife had watched the North Tower disappear from the skyline while knowing her husband had still been inside.She had every reason to believe he was gone.He wasn't.𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲For years, stories circulated about a man who had somehow “surfed” the collapse of the tower.It sounded like an urban legend.Buzzelli eventually spoke publicly about what he remembered, turning one of the strangest survival stories of September 11 into the testimony of a real man who had lived through it.There is no neat explanation for why one person survived where so many others did not.Sometimes history gives us answers.Sometimes it gives us a man opening his eyes on top of a rubble pile and wondering how he is still alive.