Cranberry Township officer grapples with mental health after traumatic call
This story contains sensitive content related to mental health and suicide. This is the first of a two-part series.
Josh Shimko remembers every detail about the dead woman who grabbed him.
The Cranberry Township patrolman arrived on the scene right behind his supervisor to find a woman in a retention pond — a reported suicide.
It was around 8 a.m. Jan. 4, 2024, the day after Shimko’s 13th anniversary with the department, as the sun rose and light snow fell on the cold January morning.
The woman’s husband and teenage son already were there. Shimko said her husband tracked his wife’s phone to a parking lot near the pond and found it, her purse and car. He said the woman’s son went through her phone and found she was looking up ways to kill herself, which led them to check the pond.
Shimko wore his heavy leather winter jacket when he walked into water up to his ankles to retrieve her body. He said when he reached down toward her, she reached out and tightly gripped his right arm over his thick leather jacket.
Shimko didn’t know then, but he was experiencing the woman’s cadaveric spasm. The spasm can occur in groups of muscles used strenuously right before death, according to the National Library of Medicine.
“It was very unusual,” Shimko said. “I’ve never had anybody grab me that was in that condition.”
The woman’s strong grip made Shimko believe there was life left in her, so he pulled her out of the pond and called paramedics. He said a person can survive about an hour in hypothermic conditions, so he was hopeful she was still alive. Paramedics worked on the woman briefly before taking her to the hospital.
He held out hope until the hospital confirmed her death. He later learned that she was dead at the scene.
As the responding officer, it was his duty to take the forensic photos of her body at the hospital.
“There’s always those bad calls that I’ll remember that were probably a little chink in the armor or that crack in the well, but none of them broke me like this one did,” said Shimko, who lives in Ellwood City.
Shimko had seen plenty of dead bodies before this. He speculated he’d seen hundreds while responding to crime scenes for 14 years in Cranberry Township and another six years before that with the Arlington County Police Department in Virginia.
He received expert training in Arlington as a crime scene technician, who takes photos, collects evidence and fingerprints, and preserves the integrity and security of the scene before it’s cleaned.
Shimko said young officers in the police academy are taught traumatic calls will come, but they need to be strong, “pack it away” and prepare for the next call. The demanding culture of law enforcement requires officers not to dwell on the awful things they see and to switch gears quickly, Shimko said.
“You’re taught in the beginning of your academy that if you can’t handle it, you shouldn’t be doing it,” he said. “I did a really good job of handling it for 23 years.”
Shimko thought he was able to pack away his feelings about the woman’s suicide until the nightmares started. In the nights that followed, he had vivid dreams where he saw the scene again but looked harder and adjusted his search, trying to change the woman’s death — but he never saved her.
Shimko said he contacted his police department for help Jan. 29, 2024, to initiate Act 59, a law which went into effect in 2021 that provides for mental health evaluations for officers.
Officers can be evaluated at their request, their chief’s request or an officer must undergo a mandatory evaluation if the officer used lethal force. Officers diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder are to be placed on administrative leave.
He said he was called into the department a couple days later to discuss his experience responding to the scene and his mental state.
“They didn’t know how to deal with me,” Shimko said. “It was all new to them as well.”
He said the department put him on sick leave, and he used his personal and vacation time as well after the interview.
Cranberry Township manager Dan Santoro and police Chief Kevin Meyer both said they cannot discuss personnel issues.
Although he’s still employed with the department, he last worked in late January 2024.
At home, Shimko’s dreams progressed into nightmares where he saw himself, his 13-year-old son, Rayne, and his 9-year-old daughter, Skylar, drowning, but he couldn’t save them.
“I wasn’t the dad I used to be,” Shimko said. “I used to get home before (my wife) Becky and make dinner, make sure the homework was all done and cleaned up ... going from that to basically nothing.”
Shimko feared being alone after the nightmares, so he got Willow, a Labrador retriever puppy. He saw a Facebook marketplace ad for her and drove to Harrisburg to get her the next day.
After about three weeks of nightmares following the incident, the dreams progressed to night terrors. Shimko would wake up in a cold sweat.
Shimko said the woman in his nightmares would tell him “no pain, no suffering, just come with me” as she pulled him into the retention pond.
After enduring sleepless nights and repeated night terrors, Shimko said he began to think he was “broken.” Within three months, he started thinking he should go with the woman in the pond.
His thoughts shifted to his Bersa Thunder .380 semiautomatic pistol.
Having served for the Cranberry Township department as a firearms instructor, field training officer and a member of the department’s Emergency Services Unit, Shimko owned several guns he hoped to pass down to his son.
The Bersa Thunder wasn’t one of them.
At his lowest point, Shimko said he put the gun into his mouth and almost pulled the trigger.
“Thank God I didn’t,” Shimko said. “What saved me was my kids and knowing they were going to find me. I’m glad I’m still here.”
Next Sunday: Shimko talks about his mental health journey, his diagnosis, treatment and recovery.
Need to talk?
For those struggling with their mental health, call the 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
