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NEW YORK (CBS/AP) ― The bald, bull-chested retired cop looked like the toughest guy in the room, but Joseph Zadroga broke down Friday as he described the day he found his 34-year-old son dead on a bedroom floor, still clutching a baby's bottle.

The son, NYPD detective James Zadroga, had toiled on the toxic pile at ground zero in 2001. He grew sicker and sicker until he died in January of respiratory disease.

"I laid down beside him," the grief-stricken Joseph Zadroga said as he struggled to regain his composure.

Zadroga's story launched a day-long congressional hearing into the health woes afflicting thousands of ground zero workers who were exposed to toxic dust and debris while clambering atop the smoking remains of the World Trade Center after the 2001 terror attacks.

Amid much official finger-pointing, the detective's father said the city failed to help as his son grew sicker. An autopsy attributed his death to the dust and fumes at the site.

"He never received any assistance from the city," Zadroga said. "He was treated like a dog."

Lawmakers joined Zadroga in harshly attacking city and federal officials at the hearing, charging that workers were not properly protected as they worked at ground zero or properly treated in the years since.

Christie Todd Whitman, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, was the most frequent target during the day-long House hearing about the health woes afflicting thousands of ground zero workers.

The hearing, held just a block from ground zero, delved into the government's public assurances about the air around the World Trade Center site. Whitman declared in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that the air in lower Manhattan was safe for workers and residents. She also tells "60 Minutes" in a segment to be aired on Sunday that responsibility for offering protective breathing gear to workers on the debris pile lay with the city. Her earlier statements have come back to haunt her as thousands of ground zero workers are still ill. She also is being sued over the public assurances.

Rep. Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican who chaired the hearing, said Whitman's September 2001 statements "defied logic and everybody knows that."

Whitman defended herself Friday, insisting that it was up to local authorities to make sure the rescue workers wore protective breathing gear.

"We agreed then, and I reiterate now, that the air on the site was not clean -- the consequence of millions of tons of burned debris from the most horrific attack in our nation's history. We were emphatic that workers needed to wear respirators, a message I repeated frequently. But I did not have the jurisdiction to force workers to wear them -- that was up to their superiors," Whitman said in a statement.

City officials already under fire for their own role in the ongoing health problems disputed Whitman's claims.

City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said the federal government was responsible for work safety at the site, and said of Whitman's post-Sept. 11 assurance, "I don't think that was an appropriate way to word the message."

Others appearing at the hearing before the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., accused the EPA of lying to New Yorkers and endangering public health.

At a separate event Friday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the city's handling of the disaster, saying it did distribute masks.

"Nobody knew whether there would be health issues down the road, and they made the decisions that they thought were right at the time," said Bloomberg, who became mayor months after the attacks.

Joe Lhota, the former deputy mayor for operations under Rudolph Giuliani, who was mayor during the attacks, said in a statement Thursday, "The EPA publicly reported that the general air quality was safe, and the city repeatedly instructed workers on the pile to use their respirators."

Officials face a growing chorus of complaints that five years after the attacks, various Sept. 11 health programs are piecemeal and too poorly funded to care for those that need it most.

The anger intensified this week when Mount Sinai released the results of a study showing nearly 7 out of every 10 ground zero responders suffered lung problems.

The Bush administration said it will continue to help sick Sept. 11 workers but would not say what their long-term health needs might cost.

Although lawmakers debated for several hours Friday about who is responsible for the health problems, Zadroga's case hung over the proceedings.

"Your story is for me, the symbol of what we need to do," said Shays.

(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)