(CNN) – A New York City emergency room doctor who recovered from covid-19 and continued to treat coronavirus patients has died of suicide, her father confirmed to CNN.
Dr. Lorna Breen died Sunday morning in Charlottesville, Virginia, said her father, Philip Breen. He was 49 years old.
“She died like a heroine,” said her father. “I was in the trenches, I was a heroine.”
Breen worked in the emergency department of Columbia University Irving Medical Center and in the New York Presbyterian hospital system. He had been on the front lines for weeks handling the avalanche of cases, his father said.
“She fell into the trenches and was killed by the enemy on the front line,” said her father. “I loved New York and I didn’t think about living anywhere else. He loved his coworkers and did what he could for them. “
Her father, a retired surgeon, said they talked frequently about the job. Lorna told her father that people at work had 18-hour daily shifts and slept in the hallways, and that ambulances couldn’t even get in because it was so crowded.
Breen caught the covid-19 and took a week and a half to recover, but when he returned to work, he couldn’t even last a 12-hour shift, his father said. She felt she had to go back to work to help her colleagues, she added.
“Words cannot convey the sense of loss we feel today,” the hospital said in a statement. “Dr. Breen is a heroine who brought the highest ideals of medicine to the challenging front lines of the emergency department. Our focus today is to support your family, friends and colleagues as they deal with this news during what is already an extraordinarily difficult time. ”
How to get help: in the USA In the USA, call the National Suicide Prevention Line at 1-800-273-8255. The International Association for Suicide Prevention and Befrienders Worldwide can also provide contact information for crisis centers around the world.
CNN’s Brian Vitagliano contributed to this report.
– .
