House Editorial: As victims continue to die, Sept. 11 still won't
Posted on April 13, 2006

It was only a paltry little sidebar story, but the signs are troubling: the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 are still killing people.

The autopsy results for 34-year-old James Zadroga, who passed away in January, were released by his family and union Tuesday, who assert that the police detective is the first casualty attributed to debris exposure after the terrorist attack. “It is felt with a reasonable degree of medical certainty,” according to the report by the Ocean County, N.J., medical examiner’s office,  “that the cause of death in this case is related to the 9/11 incident.”

The report comes amid a firestorm class action lawsuit resulting from more than two dozen deaths which families and their attorneys claim are related to the exposure to the dust released by the building collapse, which has been estimated to contain more than one million tons of powdered debris. But Zadroga’s death is the first officially attributed to the rescue effort. After spending 470 hours working sifting through Ground Zero with a paper mask as his only respiratory protection, he began suffering a chronic cough, shortness of breath and acid reflux, quickly followed by nightmares and headaches. His condition deteriorated rapidly from there, soon requiring regular use of oxygen tanks, antibiotics and steroid injections, and prompting his early disability retirement in November 2004. He was found dead by his father on his bedroom floor three months ago, with material “consistent with dust” in his lungs and damage to his liver, heart and spleen, according to the coroner. He is survived by his parents, wife and 4-year-old daughter.

His family has judiciously declined to participate in the class-action lawsuit, choosing instead to proactively use his passing to advocate further health screening programs for emergency workers and survivors of the attack. “They all knew it was detrimental to their health,” his father said, “yet they stayed there.”

Terrifyingly, this may only be the tip of a very tragic iceberg. Like most disasters, both man-made and natural, much of the damage is slow in coming. As the lawsuit claims, it may only be a matter of time before respiratory disease, cancer and the like further thin out the survivors the terrorists were unable to get to themselves.

The family’s temperate response is a wonderful testament to Zadroga; resisting the temptation to sue their way through their grief sets them a class above, and is much more of an honor to his memory. It can only be hoped that, as more and more cases like Zadroga’s surface, his family’s model will be followed. The less money, resources and time spent fighting over the dead is more spent on protecting the living from a similar fate.