9/11 claims another officer's life

For James Zadroga, dying was as simple as breathing. The highly decorated New York police detective was heading home from work on Sept. 11, 2001, when the news came across his car radio: A plane had flown into the World Trade Center. He rushed back to lower Manhattan, where the twin 110-story towers had collapsed into a toxic pile of burning rubble.

Zadroga spent 470 hours sifting through the smoldering ruins.

Inhale, exhale.

Twelve-hour shifts, nearly 40 of them.

Inhale, exhale.

More than 28,000 minutes, his only protection a thin, paper mask.

Zadroga barely avoided death when 7 World Trade Center tumbled down around him hours after the planes hit. The escape was temporary: By the time he was finished at ground zero, Zadroga was as much a Sept. 11 victim as anyone lost in the tower stairwells -- though his suffering was time-released.

His breathing became labored within weeks, his health deteriorated over months, he was on disability in just over three years. Last month, the 34-year-old Zadroga finally succumbed, betrayed by his failing body.

The World Trade Center had claimed its latest fatality.

Two years earlier, his wife died of a heart ailment that family members blame on stress created by Zadroga's illness and battle with city bureaucrats over its cause. Their 4-year-old daughter, born shortly after her father finished work at ground zero, is the newest trade center orphan.

In the days before Zadroga's final breath, his daughter came out of his bedroom and spoke to her grandfather.

"I knew my daddy was really sick," Tylerann Zadroga told him. "But I didn't think he'd die this fast."

Zadroga grew up in North Arlington, N.J. His dad was chief of police in a blue-collar suburb of 15,000 residents.

The younger of two sons, he was a nonsmoker and a bodybuilder with a rock-solid physique.

"I used to punch him in the arm, just playing around," recalled his father, Joseph. "By the time he was 16, it started to hurt my hand."

Zadroga graduated from high school, went to a local community college and then surprised his father by entering law enforcement. The son swapped his small town for the big city: He joined the New York police in 1991, and was soon working the streets of Greenwich Village.

"The apple didn't fall far from the tree," said Monsignor William Fadrowski, a family friend for nearly two decades. "Just like his father, he was a real genuine guy ... just a fine man."

Destiny calls him

A 1994 New York Times article detailed his work busting beer-drinking teens as part of the city's "quality of life" crackdown, but Zadroga was destined for bigger things.

He became a detective, earning 31 medals for excellence and seven others for meritorious duty during a decade on the job. He married Ronda in 2000, and they moved into their own suburban home two hours north of the city.

On the morning of Sept. 11, Zadroga was working in the elite Manhattan South homicide unit -- "a pretty prestigious post," said Michael Palladino, head of the Detectives Endowment Association.

Zadroga was driving home after an overnight tour when he heard that a plane had struck the trade center's north tower. He reversed course and headed toward the billowing smoke.

Zadroga was soon running for his life when 7 World Trade Center collapsed as he worked nearby. He spent the next month digging through the pile of concrete and chemicals and human remains -- even as his wife was alone at home, expecting their first child.

"The first weeks were the worst," said the Rev. Brian Jordan, a Franciscan priest who met Zadroga at ground zero in the days after 9/11. "We weren't sure what was going on. The fires were still burning."