James Zadroga
| James Zadroga | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
February 8, 1971 North Arlington, New Jersey, U.S |
| Died | January 5, 2006 (aged 34) |
| Employer | New York City Police Department (1992–2006) |
| Spouse(s) | Rhonda Zadroga (c. 2003; her death) |
James Zadroga (February 8, 1971 – January 5, 2006) was a New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer who died of a respiratory disease that has been attributed to his participation in rescue and recovery operations in the rubble of the World Trade Center following the September 11 attacks. Zadroga was the first NYPD officer whose death was attributed to exposure to his contact with toxic chemicals at the attack site.
Zadroga had joined the New York City Police Department in 1992 and attained the rank of Detective. He was a healthy non-smoker and had no known history of asthma or other respiratory conditions before spending 450 hours participating in the recovery efforts at the 9/11 attack site. Weeks after his time at the World Trade Center site, Zadroga developed a persistent cough, and, as the months progressed, he developed shortness of breath and became unable to walk distances more than 100 feet without gasping for air.
The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund awarded Zadroga a monetary settlement in excess of $1M in 2004, after determining that his exposure to dust at Ground Zero had caused his respiratory illness. The New York City Police Department Medical Board approved his application for permanent disability retirement that same year, after concluding that his illness was related to dust exposure.
The causes of Zadroga's death are under dispute. Gerard Breton, a pathologist of the Ocean County, New Jersey medical examiner's office, conducted an autopsy in April 2006, and he reported, "It is felt with a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the cause of death in this case was directly related to the 9/11 incident." This attribution made Zadroga, 34 years old at the time of his death, the first 9/11 responder whose death was directly linked with toxic Ground Zero substances. Breton's autopsy found what he described as "unidentified foreign materials" in Zadroga's lungs, which were identified by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, D.C. as talc, cellulose, calcium phosphate, and methacrylate plastic; However, the examination did not compare the particles found in his lungs with actual dust from the World Trade Center site.
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