I was buried alive TWICE on 9/11: Firefighter heard screams fade to silence... before the second tower buried him again

It was pitch black beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center.

FDNY firefighter Joe Torrillo could barely move; his skull had been split open, his ribs and arm were broken and his spine crushed beneath slabs of concrete.

Muffled screams for help ricocheted around the rubble. Then, one by one, the voices began to fade.

'After a while the screams turned into cries, cries into whimpers, whimpers into silence,' Torrillo told the Daily Mail.

'One by one, I guess they all died and I was still alive.'

Torrillo, one of the thousands of first responders who swarmed lower Manhattan when the planes hit, had been buried alive when the South Tower collapsed on September 11, 2001.

About 25 minutes later, rescuers found a void in the wreckage and dragged him and three others to safety – but his ordeal was far from over.

As medics rushed him toward the Hudson River and loaded him onto a boat bound for a hospital, another deafening roar rolled across Lower Manhattan.

FDNY firefighter Joe Torrillo survived the collapse of both World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001 — despite suffering devastating injuries and being buried beneath the wreckage twice

The first hijacked plane struck the North Tower at 8.46am. Torrillo was away from his usual firehouse when he saw the images on television and immediately headed for Lower Manhattan

By the time Torrillo reached the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge, thick smoke was pouring from the North Tower and he realized the aircraft that struck it must have been a commercial jet.

The North Tower was coming down.

Torrillo, who had taken refuge in the boat's engine room below deck, was buried alive for a second time.

For the next three days, the FDNY listed him as missing.

Speaking to the Daily Mail in an exclusive video interview twenty-five years later, Torrillo says he can still recall every detail of the day he disappeared twice beneath the ruins of the World Trade Center.

He was in Brooklyn, away from his usual firehouse, when the first hijacked jet struck the North Tower at 8.46am.

A college student ran into the office where he was working and told him a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

'I said, "What are you talking about?"'

'He said, "A plane just hit the World Trade Center. It's on the TV in the conference room."'

Torrillo saw smoke pouring from the tower and immediately headed toward Manhattan, fearing the city would quickly gridlock.

@dailymail

On 9/11, former FDNY Lieutenant Joe Torrillo was running past the South Tower, when the second plane flew directly over his head. He immediately realized New York was under attack. When the South Tower came down, it destroyed a nearby hotel and buried him beneath the wreckage, until rescuers found a void and pulled him out. Torrillo later woke up in a New Jersey hospital. The FDNY listed him as missing for three days. This is his harrowing account of surviving September 11. Warning: This video contains deeply distressing descriptions of 9/11. September11 NeverForget FDNY 911Survivor NewYorkCity

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Hundreds of firefighters, police officers and emergency workers converged on the World Trade Center as thousands of workers attempted to escape the burning towers

From the streets below, Torrillo could see people trapped at windows high above the impact zones. Some waved clothing for help while others fell from the burning buildings

By the time he reached the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge, Torrillo could see the scale of the inferno despite being seven blocks away.

'I'm saying to myself, "I don't think this was a little plane. This must have been a commercial jet."'

But he couldn’t wrap his head around one thing – commercial aircraft did not fly that route.

As he raced along Liberty Street and passed the South Tower, a thunderous noise made him look skyward again. 

United Airlines Flight 175 swept directly overhead.

Seconds later, it slammed into the South Tower. 'Now I realize we're under a terrorist attack. It's so obvious because this is no coincidence.'

For Torrillo, a 25-year-veteran of the FDNY, memories of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing came rushing back.

The nightmare New York had once feared had returned. Only this time, it was unimaginably larger.

Torrillo (not pictured here), who had studied architecture and engineering before joining the FDNY, became increasingly concerned that the severe structural damage and intense fires could bring the towers down

At 9.59am the South Tower began to collapse. Torrillo ran for cover as the force of the falling skyscraper ripped off his firefighter's helmet and eventually hurled him through the air

The collapsing South Tower tore through the Marriott Hotel and buried Torrillo beneath steel and concrete. With a severe head wound and multiple broken bones, he lay trapped in complete darkness as the air around him ran out

Looking toward the upper floors of the burning towers, his firefighter's instinct told him something even more terrible.

'Everybody on the top of the towers above the point of impact, they are going to die,' he remembered thinking.

'There's no way we're getting to them, and there's no way that they're getting down.'

Hundreds of feet above him, men and women crowded shattered windows, waving clothing into the air in the hope someone below might see them.

He moved beneath a pedestrian footbridge, worried that whatever debris was coming down from above could strike him.

Then something told him to look back, 'I saw arms and legs flailing,' he said.

The realization was horrifying. People were falling and jumping from the towers.

Rescuers eventually discovered a pocket in the wreckage and pulled Torrillo and three others alive from the rubble. Medics strapped him to a stretcher and rushed him toward the Hudson River for evacuation

He said he saw some people holding hands or embracing as they fell.

Yet even as that horror unfolded above him, Torrillo had become convinced there was an even greater danger.

Having studied architecture and engineering, he feared the damage and fires had compromised the buildings.

'I said, "The towers are going to collapse."' Torrillo recalled. Few listened.

At 9.59am, Torrillo looked up and saw what he described as an enormous mushroom cloud billowing at the top of the South Tower, for a moment, he thought another bomb had exploded.

He ran once more, not yet realizing the entire 110-story tower was collapsing behind him.

'My helmet was just flying through the air, flying faster than I'm running, but I just kept running,’ said Torrillo.

Torrillo had barely reached a rescue boat when the North Tower collapsed at 10.28am. He tore himself from the stretcher and dived into the boat's engine room as debris and shattered glass rained down around him

The firefighter survived being engulfed by the wreckage for a second time, but amid the chaos the FDNY did not know he was alive

He tried to dive under a pedestrian footbridge, believing rescuers might at least find his body there. Before he made it, the blast was so potent it swept him off his feet.

'I was just kind of flying through the air,' he said.

Then the South Tower crashed through the 22-story Marriott Hotel between the Twin Towers and the wreckage swallowed him up.

'It was dark as midnight. You could see nothing,' he said.

'There's no more air. I'm suffocating and I'm buried with all these people, and I hear all these people screaming in the darkness, "Help me, help me."'

For roughly 25 minutes he lay there, listening as the cries around him gradually stopped.

Then rescuers broke through.

They found Torrillo in a pocket within the rubble and hauled him to the surface.

Torrillo remained officially missing for three days before finally being removed from the department's missing list

His injuries appeared fatal. Medics were physically holding together the wound in his skull as they strapped him to a stretcher and raced him toward the Hudson, hoping to evacuate him by boat to the hospital.

'I was screaming in pain and I heard them saying that I was going to die if they couldn't get me to a hospital,' Torrillo said.

Then came another rumble, this time, everyone on the boat knew what it meant.

'Oh my God, here comes the other tower,' people screamed.

At 10.28am, the North Tower began to collapse.

Huge fragments of the building hurtled toward the river. Glass showered the boat.

Anyone capable of escaping jumped overboard.

Torrillo, still strapped to the stretcher, was left behind.

 Looking back 25 years later, Torrillo says the events of September 11 remain seared into his memory - from the roar of the collapsing towers to the voices of those trapped alongside him beneath the rubble

Desperate, he tore himself free, reached through the darkness and felt a doorway.

'I ended up diving headfirst 10 feet below into the engine room,' he explained.

Then the rubble of the North Tower's debris hit the boat, Torrillo thought it was the end.

He remembers telling himself at the time, 'now the North Tower buried the boat on the river and I'm buried a second time and suffocating all over again.'

Yet once more, Torrillo survived but nobody at the FDNY knew where he was.

Torrillo remained officially missing for three days before authorities learned he was alive. He says he became the final firefighter removed from his department's missing list.

For Torrillo, however, leaving Ground Zero did not mean leaving September 11 behind.

A quarter of a century later, the darkness, the screams and the roar of the towers collapsing remain as vivid as ever.