James Zadroga died on January 6, 2006, of respiratory disease, black lung disease and mercury on the brain, leaving behind his parents and his four year old daughter. Zadroga was 34. During the final 13 years of his life he’d worked for the New York Police Department (NYPD), rising to the position of Detective with the Manhattan Homicide Task Force, before going off work on a 75% pay disability pension at the end of 2004, when he also r...