Waltham on Thursday mourned the loss of police Officer Paul J. Tracey, a 28-year veteran of the department who was killed Wednesday alongside a utility worker when both men were struck in a crash that injured two other workers.
Tracey, 58, was remembered as an officer who jumped in to help when a young woman overdosed on drugs where he was vacationing, saved the life of a woman who was found unresponsive in her bed, and looked after neighbors in need of assistance.
Peter J. Simon, 54, the driver who allegedly crashed into Tracey as the officer worked a traffic detail, was ordered held without bail Thursday at his arraignment in Waltham District Court on two counts of manslaughter and other charges.
National Grid worker Roderick Jackson, 36, of Cambridge, was also killed in the crash.
Tracey made headlines several times in his career, as when he helped save the life of a woman experiencing a drug overdose at a beach in South Yarmouth in August 2018, Boston 25 News reported.
He was with his family at the Riviera Beach Resort when his sister noticed a young woman having a medical emergency, and Tracey and his cousin, a recently retired nurse, rushed over to help the woman, who had stopped breathing, according to the station.
Tracey and his cousin performed CPR while others called 911, and soon emergency responders administered the overdose-reversing drug Narcan to the woman, who survived, according to the report.
Roughly two decades earlier, Tracey helped save the life of a Boston 25 News reporter’s grandmother, the journalist said on social media.
Christine McCarthy said in a series of posts that “twenty-something years ago” her grandfather awoke to find her grandmother unresponsive beside him, and he quickly called 911.
“My mom arrived first and started CPR, panicked and unsure what to do,” McCarthy wrote. “Then, Officer Tracey, whom my parents had known for many years and who had heard the call at his nearby mother’s house, arrived and took over CPR until EMTs arrived with an [automated external defibrillator].”
McCarthy wrote that Tracey “firmly but kindly told my mom to wait in the hallway as they performed their life-saving efforts,” and that “all of their actions, particularly Officer Tracey’s early CPR, allowed my family to have several more years with my beloved Nana.”
In another incident, Tracey was at home in 1997 eating dinner when he was alerted that a 36-year-old man with a history of mental illness who lived just four houses away had stabbed his father multiple times, the Boston Herald reported.
Tracey went outside, where the man had knocked his father to the ground and was continuing to stab him, and “stopped the attack within seconds,” neighbors told the Herald, though he was too late to save the father’s life.
Tracey also clashed with his own department, suing Waltham and three police officials for wrongful discipline and unlawful actions in 2014 after he was suspended for 15 days because of eight administrative charges filed against him, the Waltham News Tribune reported.
The charges against Tracey stemmed from a February 2011 incident in which he accompanied then-City Council president and mayoral candidate Paul Brasco to a property owned by Brasco, where the councilor allegedly threatened to evict and deport a tenant if he didn’t move out, according to the News Tribune.
A three-judge panel in the Appeals Court dismissed Tracey’s civil lawsuit in 2017 because of a lack of evidence. An independent arbitrator had previously ruled against the city on all the charges except one, the newspaper reported.
Tracey was married to Waltham police Officer Kristin Tracey, who is the resource officer for the city’s schools. They had two children, a daughter named Danika and a son named Tyler, Tracey recently told Patch.com.
In a video interview that was posted on Facebook two years ago, Kristin Tracey reflected on being a police officer married to a fellow member of the force.
“Working on the same department, we can go home and have some of those conversations, we can talk about our day, and we can mention other officers or situations, and they can understand what we’re going through,” she said.
Police Chief Kevin O’Connell said at a news conference Wednesday night that “Paul Tracey served this great city with distinction.”
“He was a compassionate police officer who always looked out for the underdog. He was an amazing husband, a loving father,” O’Connell said. The chief asked for privacy for the Tracey family “to give them time to grieve, but also keep them in your prayers.”
Some who knew Tracey expressed their sympathies on social media.
“Rest in the sweetest peace Paul Tracey,” Cindy Partridge Murphy wrote on Facebook. “I will always remember how much you made me laugh.”
“My heart goes out to the Tracey family,” wrote Diane Arnt. “Paul was such a great guy, senseless tragedy.”
Jay Finnigan wrote on Facebook that Tracey “was a close family friend.”
“Rest in Peace my friend and prayers for his wife and family,” Finnigan wrote.
Tracey ran unsuccessfully for Waltham’s Ward 3 City Council seat in 2019, and again last month. In an election questionnaire for Patch.com in October, Tracey wrote that one of his key priorities was to open the grounds of the long-closed Fernald School as open space.
“Politics is solving people’s problems,” he wrote. “I’ve been solving problems as a municipal employee for 28 years. I drive the streets every day and evening. I hit the same potholes, see the same leaning and double telephone poles and street lights that are either not working or never shut off. So I send emails or make telephone calls to see if these matters can be solved.”
Tracey also looked out for his neighbors and was always ready to lend a hand, according to Sean Vincent Biggins, a Waltham native whose late parents were next-door neighbors to the Tracey family.
“I can remember during a power outage after a big storm, they ran a cable from their generator over to our parents’ house so that they would have power for their fridge,” Biggins said in a Facebook message to a reporter.
Biggins didn’t know Tracey well, but he appreciates all the officer and his family did for his mother and father.
“They were very nice and helpful to our parents in times of need, and we truly appreciated knowing they were next door during the times when none of us could be there,” he said. “Our hearts go out to the family, especially to Kristin and the kids, at this terrible time.”
John R. Ellement and Jeremiah Manion of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at jeremy.fox@globe.com. Follow him @jeremycfox.