9/11 survivor recounts haunting escape from 81st floor of World Trade Center tower

David Paventi was on the 81st floor of the World Trade Center's North Tower when the first plane struck on 9/11.

A banker from Charlotte, North Carolina, Paventi was in New York City at the time on business. His company had a new office in the World Trade Center it was still moving into, with TV mounts screwed into the walls but TVs not yet installed.

The day before, Sept. 10, Paventi remembers looking out a window of the skyscraper on a day that was so muggy and foggy he couldn't see the streets below.

"There was another gentleman … that was up there with me that day — he and I had went and got coffee that morning and went upstairs — and I remember him saying to me, ‘How do airplanes not hit this building?’" Paventi recalled.

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David Paventi's temporary ID card for the World Trade Center on 9/11. (David Paventi)

He didn't make much of the comment then, other than thinking there were air security and control methods in place to make sure that wouldn't happen.

The next day was a bright, crisp preview to autumn, Paventi said. Just before he and his team in the World Trade Center building were scheduled to start their morning meeting at a long table in a conference room on the 81st floor, American Airlines flight 11 hit the North Tower's 93rd floor, just 12 floors above Paventi's office, at 8:46 a.m.

He said it felt like what he'd imagine an earthquake feels like, even though he's never experienced one himself.

"I remember looking up … and the light was just shaking back and forth over the table," Paventi said. "So, my initial instinct was to get under the table because I didn't want the light to fall on my head. And as I was doing that, literally everyone in the conference room got up from their seats and took off out of the front of the room."

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Pedestrians in lower Manhattan watch smoke billow from New York's World Trade Center Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)

Some of the people in the building that day had experienced a bombing at the base of the World Trade Center in 1993.

Paventi began following his coworkers out of their office and went down several flights of stairs, which he recalls being crowded and very quiet, before he decided to wait for his friend Bob, who had stayed behind to make sure everyone had left the office. Bob caught up a few minutes later, and they descended the remainder of the stairs together.

"We all know how New Yorkers are, and they can be boisterous and loud and all that. So, you would have thought that there'd be some commotion in the stairwell, but there wasn't," he said. "It was very quiet."

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A firefighter walks through rubble of the twin towers of the World Trade Center as a U.S. flag hangs from a traffic light post Sept. 11, 2001, in New York. (Doug Kanter/AFP)

He remembers being asked to move aside as a couple of people helped a man who had been badly burned move quickly down the stairs. He and Bob smelled something unfamiliar in the stairwell that they now believe must have been jet fuel.

Descending dozens of stories to get to the first floor was very "stop and go" due to the number of people trying to escape, and Paventi said he and Bob seemed to have the same unspoken thought that maybe they were in the wrong place; maybe they should try a different staircase to get down faster.

"And every time one of us would get ready to say something, the line would start moving again," he said. 

"We never left that one stairwell, thank God, because, obviously, we were able to get out."

— David Paventi

They both had pagers at the time, and by the 30th or 40th floors, they began receiving messages saying a plane had crashed into their building. Then, they learned that a second plane — United Airlines flight 175 — crashed into the South Tower at 9:03.

David Paventi's Bank of America shirt he was wearing on 9/11. (Paventi)

The entire way from the 81st floor to the lobby took about an hour and a half, Paventi said, adding that he felt his flight instincts kick in more so than panic. He just wanted to get out. Meanwhile, he saw firefighters hurrying to get into the building, moving in the opposite direction as everyone was trying to escape, which he described as a "sobering" memory.

The firefighters had stopped to catch their breath on the stairwell because they were wearing full gear and carrying heavy equipment, encouraging people to keep moving because the ground floor was open.

"One of the firemen … I remember him looking up and saying, ‘I get to do all this for 35 grand a year.’'"

— David Paventi

"I was like, good Lord. Talk about a gut check," Paventi said.

Eventually, they made it to the lobby of the building, which Paventi described as a scene from "Die Hard," with large windows that had been blown out and debris everywhere.

A woman wearing some kind of official law enforcement jacket told Paventi and Bob to run "and don't look back," so they did. Paventi did look back at one point to see a huge cloud of smoke barreling toward them, but they cut a corner and got behind a building just in time to miss it.

Nearly 3,000 people died and thousands more were injured in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. (Photo12/Universal Images Group)

Getting out of the city was a logistical nightmare. Paventi did not want to take any underground transportation after the terrorist attack and figured bridges were the best way to get off the island of Manhattan, so they walked to the nearest one. Paventi remembers seeing the South Tower go down completely.

"I remember looking over to where the Trade Center was, and our building was gone and there was just rubble and smoke and stuff coming up. I remember looking over, and, at that point, the second tower started to fall, and it literally melted," he said. "It looked like it just melted into the rest of the city. It was … disturbing and eye-opening and just … the weirdest thing you could ever see."

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He and Bob then hitchhiked their way to JFK thanks to a good Samaritan who picked them up, got a rental Chevy Blazer and drove to Bob's family on Long Island first and ultimately back to Charlotte, with many hiccups in between.

Authorities found, identified and returned Paventi's scorched wallet and cards to him a year or two after the 9/11 attacks.? (Paventi)

Paventi's wife was fielding calls from their family and friends concerned about Paventi while she was still trying to determine if he was OK. He was not able to call her until he reached Bob's family home on Long Island.

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Immediately after the attacks, Paventi said, he experienced some anxiety. Loud noises scared him, even though he is not a particularly jumpy person. In more recent years, Paventi said he reflects on those who were not so fortunate to walk away with their lives that day or those first responders who sacrificed their lives to help others. He also thinks about how much things have changed with respect to security since 9/11.

"It's sad to me that it takes an event like that for people to recognize the level of freedom that we enjoy in this country."

— David Paventi

"Even a couple days after that … there were no flights. Everything was grounded, and that was very bizarre. … There was a really strong feeling of patriotism. People had flags hanging off their houses that you normally wouldn't see flags hanging off their houses. It's sad to me that it takes an event like that for people to recognize the level of freedom that we enjoy in this country and then to think about some of those freedoms that have been taken away in response to everything that happened."

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Nearly 3,000 people died and thousands of others were injured, some of them still suffering from illnesses resulting from the harsh chemicals and fumes they were exposed to that day and in the days and weeks afterward responding to the catastrophic attack.