Dad Of 9/11 Officer Dies After Driver Hits Him In NJ Parking Lot: Police

GALLOWAY, NJ — The father of NYPD cop James Zadroga, whose illness and death prompted the 9/11 Victims Cancer Fund, was struck and killed in hospital parking lot in Galloway, police said.

Galloway Police said that Joseph Zadroga, 76, of Little Egg Harbor, was standing outside of his vehicle at Bacharach Rehabilitation on Jimmie Leeds Road when another driver hit him, on Saturday just after 2 p.m.

Zadroga had just left his wife's bedside and was going back to his car for Christmas presents, his family told Newsday.

Police said the driver, an 82-year-old Absecon resident, was pulling into his parking space when he accelerated, striking Zadroga's Hyundai and then Zadroga, who was pinned underneath. First responders transported him to the nearby AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center Mainland Division, where he was later pronounced deceased. Police said the investigation is ongoing.

His son James Zadroga was the first 9/11 first responder to die from an illness contracted by helping at the World Trade Center after the 2001 terrorist attacks. He died in 2006, at the age of 34.

The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, passed in 2010, offers compensation to people who developed cancer or other serious health problems from 9/11. It also offers support to family members of someone who died of an illness related to the terrorist attacks.