A New York City emergency room doctor who was on the “front lines” of the fight against the coronavirus has died by suicide, police said Monday.
Dr. Lorna Breen, 49, who worked at NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, was in Virginia when she died on Sunday, said Tyler Hawn, a spokesman for the Charlottesville Police Department.
“The victim was taken to U.V.A. Hospital for treatment, but later succumbed to self-inflicted injuries,” Hawn said.
It was her father, Dr. Phillip Breen, who revealed the first details about his daughter's tragic death.
“She tried to do her job, and it killed her,” he told The New York Times. “She was truly in the trenches of the front line.”
He said his daughter seemed very detached of late and that she had described some of the horrors she had witnessed at the hospital while battling the virus.
“Make sure she’s praised as a hero, because she was,” Phillip Breen said. “She’s a casualty just as much as anybody else who has died.”
The hospital confirmed Lorna Breen’s death in a statement released by chief spokesperson Lucky Tran, but gave few other details.
“Words cannot convey the sense of loss we feel today,” the statement said. “Dr. Breen is a hero who brought the highest ideals of medicine to the challenging front lines of the emergency department. Our focus today is to provide support to her family, friends, and colleagues as they cope with this news during what is already an extraordinarily difficult time."
NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital has 200 beds, is in northern Manhattan and is one of the seven hospitals that make up NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.
