Retired FDNY firefighter Joe Torrillo has described surviving being buried alive twice during the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, first when the South Tower collapsed on top of him and again minutes later when the North Tower came down as he was being evacuated by boat. Speaking to the Daily Mail 25 years on, Torrillo recounted hearing the cries of other trapped victims fade into silence around him, and said he was left with a fractured skull, broken ribs and arm, and a crushed spine before rescuers pulled him from a void in the rubble.

Torrillo, a 25-year FDNY veteran, was off duty in Brooklyn when the first plane hit the North Tower at 8.46am and rushed towards Manhattan, watching the second aircraft fly directly overhead before it struck the South Tower. After being freed from the first collapse, he was being taken towards the Hudson River for medical evacuation when the North Tower's collapse buried him a second time inside a boat's engine room; the FDNY subsequently listed him as missing for three days before he woke in a New Jersey hospital.