We All Fall Down: The True Story of the 9/11 Surfer

On the morning of September 11 2001 Pasquale Buzzelli was working on the 64th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. His wife Louise was at home, seven months pregnant with their first child. She was woken that morning by a call from Pasquale who asked her to put on the television as his building was on fire. As Louise watched in horror, the events of 9/11 unfolded over the next few hours. Pasquale called her again and told her he was about to evacuate the building but, just minutes later, Louise watched as the North Tower collapsed with Pasquale still inside. She was sure she had watched her husband and father of her unborn child die in front of her eyes...Pasquale was in the middle of evacuating and reached the stairwell on the 22nd floor when the North Tower collapsed. He remembers thinking "this is how Im going to die" as he fell with the building. Miraculously, he survived the fall and awoke three hours later perched on a pile of rubble on a concrete slab 4ft by 4ft sticking out over a huge 60ft drop. Eventually, firemen managed to get him down and he was taken to the hospital. Louise was at home being consoled by family and friends, still thinking he was dead, until late that afternoon, when the phone rang, and it was him on the other line! Pasquale was one of only 16 people to have survived the collapse of the North Tower. Although Pasquale escaped with bruising and a fractured foot, virtually unscathed, the mental scars took a lot longer to heal. In the months after 9/11 Pasquale found it hard to come to terms with what happened that he had survived and his friends and colleagues had not. He became distant from his wife and newly born baby as the guilt made it impossible for him to be happy. At the same time Louise was experiencing her own PTSD. As joyous as she was to find out her husband survived, she equally felt pain and sorrow for those whose husbands were not as fortunate. Stories in the press would show widows and babies of men who had died in the attacks. "It is hard to imagine the pain they suffered and the strength they needed to carry out their pregnancy." Louise wrote A Song for Hope (named after their newborn daughter) and the money from the sale of the CD was shared among the widows and their babies born after 9/11. 'We All Fall Down: The True Story of the 9/11 Surfer' is the story of how Pasquale dealt with the horrific events of 9/11, with the PTSD and survivor guilt that followed, and ultimately with his road to recovery. For Pasquale, 9/11 will always be with him and he thinks about it every day but now, 10 years on, he has realised the best way to respect the memory of those who died, he needs to live for his life again ..."I could not control what had happened to me but now I can control how I would lead my life. How I would be the father and husband that my family deserved and to help and respect my fellow man as I was taught to do by my father".