World Trade Center Dust Claims First Confirmed Victim

Detective James Zadroga’s January 5, 2006, death of respiratory failure is the first to be officially blamed on exposure to dust from the September 11, 2001, collapse of the World Trade Center. “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,” according to the coroner’s report. Zagroda, 34, did not smoke and had no history of asthma, but spent 450 hours in recovery efforts at the Trade Center site, according to an April 14, 2006, New York Times article. “I cannot personally understand that anyone could see what I saw in the lungs, and know that the person was exposed to Ground Zero, and not make the same link I made,” Dr. Gerard Breton, who performed the autopsy, told The New York Times.