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Ali Watkins, Michael Rothfeld and William K. Rashbaum,
The New York Times Company
April 27, 2020 | 2:38 PM
A doctor in the emergency room of a major Manhattan hospital died of suicide on Sunday, according to his father.
Dr. Lorna M. Breen, medical director of the emergency department at NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, died in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she was staying with her family, her father said in an interview.
Her father, Dr. Philip C. Breen, said that she had described devastating scenes of the cost that the coronavirus caused in patients.
“She tried to do her job, and that killed her,” he said.
Philip Breen said his daughter had contracted the coronavirus but had returned to work after recovering for about a week and a half. The hospital sent her home again, before her family intervened to take her to Charlottesville, she said.
It was unclear why Lorna Breen had committed suicide. She had no history of mental illness, her father said. But he said the last time he spoke to her, she seemed distant, and he could tell that something was wrong. She had described to him an avalanche of patients dying before they could be removed from ambulances.
“She was really in the trenches of the front line,” he said.
She added: “Make sure she is praised as a heroine, because she was. She is a victim as much as anyone else who has died.”
The hospital did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Dr. Angela Mills, chief of emergency medical services at many New York Presbyterian precincts, including Allen, e-mailed hospital employees on Sunday night informing them of Lorna Breen’s death. The email, which was reviewed by The New York Times, did not mention a cause of death. Mills, who could not be reached for comment, said in the email that the hospital was deferring the family’s privacy request.
“A death presents us with many questions that we may not be able to answer,” the email said.
NewYork-Presbyterian Allen is a 200-bed hospital in the northern tip of Manhattan that sometimes had up to 170 patients with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. As of April 7, there had been 59 patient deaths at the hospital, according to an internal document.
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If you are thinking about committing suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.
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