Some officers go their whole career without pulling the trigger. Toronto police Const. Darius Garda’s career had just begun. The officer was just 23 years old the night he and fellow officers shot and killed a mentally ill man.

The young cop returned to work soon after the shooting, according to a source close to the family, and it took some time for him to realize he was having difficulty coping.

He avoided talking about the fatal encounter. Years later, at the inquest into shooting victim Wieslaw Duda’s death, Garda became so emotional on the stand it prompted a court recess.

As time passed, Garda realized “something was up, and he tried to get help,” the source close to Garda said. “He had to fight to get some help.”

Garda, 29, was found dead Thursday after police sources say he jumped into Lake Ontario in the Polson and Cherry Sts. area on Wednesday afternoon. His body was found by his colleagues in the Toronto police marine unit.

Sources close to Garda say he had been suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder. One police source said he had been receiving professional help for years.

For first responders suffering from PTSD, an all too common occupational hazard, there are many hurdles to getting the help they badly need, including realizing that mental health challenges are not just part of the job.

For some, the biggest challenge can be having their condition recognized by the province’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, an important step in order to avoid facing both financial ruin and a mental health crisis.

According to colleagues, Garda had difficulties having his PTSD recognized by the WSIB, and ran into significant financial problems, though the Star could not independently confirm this. A crowdfunding site was set up for him last fall; fellow officers at 51 Division, where Garda worked, collected money for him last year to help with his mortgage.

Tonya Johnson, a spokesperson for the WSIB, said in an email Friday that the board could not comment on individual claims.

“But we are very sorry to read about the death of Officer Darius Garda and send our deepest sympathies to his family and colleagues at 51 Division in this difficult time,” Johnson said.

Stories about first responders who are “in danger of losing their homes and their marriages” are well-known to Cheri DiNovo, NDP MPP for Parkdale-High Park. She has attempted five times in seven years to achieve what’s called “presumptive legislation” when it comes to PTSD and first responders.

The Liberal government hinted this week that presumptive legislation could come as soon as later this month, meaning PTSD would automatically be considered a workplace injury. The change would spare first responders the so-called “WSIB dance” of having to prove their mental illness was caused by their work, DiNovo said.

That “rigmarole” can traumatize anew, DiNovo said.

“We have file folders full of cases of folk who have tried and failed,” she said. “Then you look at the suicide stats. . . This is ridiculous. We should be ashamed.”

The source close to Garda said he experienced difficulty both accessing professional help through the WSIB and gaining understanding about his mental health challenges — and it had a compounding effect.

“I don’t think the shooting was the problem, it was after — how the whole thing was treated. . . He just felt that he wasn’t being listened to and he was being forced to do things for economic reasons,” the source said.

Toronto police are not commenting directly about Garda’s death. But a two-page summary of psychological services currently available to Toronto police officers includes a psychological wellness program, which involves visits “at least annually” for officers in roles considered high risk, including child exploitation investigators and homicide detectives.

There is also a “critical incident response” plan where officers involved in a traumatic event such as a shooting receive peer support and debriefing.

There are currently two psychologists with the force, and the Toronto Police Service is moving quickly toward hiring a third, said spokesman Mark Pugash.

Still, there are shortfalls within the support network, says Keith Hassell, a former police officer and U.S. navy veteran who served in the Persian Gulf War.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Hassell is now a correctional worker in Ontario, and in 2013 he launched the Toronto Guardians, the first Canadian chapter of a fraternal organization of police and correctional workers that grew out of the U.S. civil rights movement.

His frequent contact with police officers and other first responders made him realize there was another issue to tackle: the stigma and challenges associated with mental health. In turn, he has created the Toronto PTSD Emergency Response Coalition.

One of the coalition’s goals is to provide peer support and guidance through a confusing process, one Hassell understands all too well. After years of personal struggle, he sought help last year for his wartime PTSD.

“A lot of people don’t understand how they have post-traumatic stress disorder, and they don’t know the avenues to take through the WSIB, writing the reports the right way, how to seek the help,” he said.

“I hear it every day, as far as people saying, ‘I don’t know how to do this.’ ”

For Sgt. Brian Knowler, who is currently with the OPP working in southwestern Ontario, the hardest part was acknowledging there was a problem in the first place.

Calling himself one of the “lucky ones,” Knowler filed a claim with the WSIB and it was approved (“though I have heard some real horror stories,” he said) — but that was years after the trigger for his PTSD.

Knowler had been the first responder at a collision where the driver, a good friend from university, died while Knowler was performing CPR. He never dealt with his emotions around the crash and “thought it was just part of the job,” he said.

The problem festered, even though he knew the OPP had services such as peer support available to him. “Ironically,” Knowler said, he was on the OPP’s internal critical incident team for five years after the crash.

“I would sit with officers who had been through a critical incident and I would say: ‘Here’s what you can expect. You’ll probably have trouble sleeping.’ And not once did I look in the mirror.”

Knowler finally reached out for help after a “very dark period” that involved suicidal thoughts.

“What kept me from doing it was the thought of someone that I work with having to go to my house and tell my wife and my kids that I wasn’t coming home,” he said.