From left Christopher Vidro , Paul Giardino , Chief Paul Cell , Lieutenant Barbara Giuliano and Captain Kieran Barrett .
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“ Shortly after the second plane hit , Chris called ,” Toni recounted . “ He said , ‘ Don ’ t get upset . I ’ m headed into the city .’ I ’ m like , ‘ Why would you head toward the city ? What if there is another plane somewhere ?’ He didn ’ t seem nervous . He said , ‘ This is what my job is all about . I don ’ t know when I can call you .’”
The television footage of the towers collapsing kept running through her mind as the day went on and she waited for the call . Chief Cell phoned to tell her there was no way to get in touch with Chris , but he heard things were fine and to try not to worry .
Nearly a full day had passed when the phone finally rang with Chris ’ number on caller ID .
“ He said he was a few minutes from home and to meet him at the door with a garbage bag , a big one ,” Toni said . “ He was covered in soot and powder . He took all his pins off his uniform and his badge and threw them out . There was no way to save it . It was bad .”
From left , Chris and Toni Lyn Vidro with Chief Cell .
Somebody so young
In late 2002 , shortly before Dylan was born , Chris began feeling pain in his shoulder , some numbness and tingling in his arm . He told Toni that he thought he had a pinched nerve or had slept on it funny and figured that was causing the pain . Then he thought it was an orthopedic problem and that rotator cuff surgery might be in his future .
Doctors ordered an MRI and found an explanation for the symptoms . He had lesions all down his spine causing nerve damage that manifested in his pain . A myeloma specialist at Hackensack University Medical Center diagnosed the cancer in November 2004 . He noted that it was more aggressive than a typical case and unusual to be found in somebody so young .
A couple of stem-cell treatments and aggressive chemotherapy created some short-term remission . During one of those , Chris and Toni knew they had a small window to consider having another child . Through artificial insemination , Megan was conceived .
On July 12 , 2007 , Megan was born . Chris had gotten really sick , but two weeks later he managed to make it home from the hospital to see his daughter . “ He was totally in love when he saw Megan ,” Toni shared . She wanted to capture that moment on video , but Chris wanted to wait . He had come home wearing hospital pajamas and didn ’ t want the photos to show him in that garb . He would clean up the next morning and get the picture .
“ In the middle of the night , we had to rush him back to the hospital ,” Toni said . “ We never got the picture of him with Megan .”
Another step in the journey
Even then , Toni wondered if something in the soot and the powder had caused all this . There was no other way – no better way , certainly – to explain how somebody so young could be afflicted with multiple myeloma , a cancer that forms in white blood cells called a plasma cells and accumulates in the bone marrow , especially in the spine .
“ Everyone assumed it was connected , but nobody knew for sure ,” Toni explained . “ As the years went on , a lot of people who were at Ground Zero contracted some type of blood cancer , people way younger than what you would see .”
Barrett suggested that through the Zadroga Act they might find some links to whether the cancer could have been contracted due to the 9 / 11 response . After making that connection , they learned that the NLEOM was honoring any such passings caused by 9 / 11 response as Line of Duty Deaths .
An application had to be filed with the NLEOM for consideration . That led to another hero of this story , Montclair State University PD student intern Nick Novakowski . A criminal justice major , Novakowski wanted to do more than file papers and ride around with officers on patrol . He worked for weeks on the application .
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50 NEW JERSEY COPS ■ APRIL 2018