Top NYC ER Doctor Commits Suicide After Fighting in the Frontlines of the Pandemic

A New York hospital’s head of emergency commits suicide after days of fighting on the frontlines of coronavirus pandemic, the Post reports. 

Frontline Medics Most at Risk 

49-year-old Dr. Lorna Breen, medical director of the New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, is one of a rising number of health care workers to take their own lives recently. Dr. Breen had been staying with her family in Charlottesville, Virginia, when she passed away this Sunday. 

Her father, Dr. Philip Breen, told the New York Times that she “tried to do her job, and it killed her.” He added that she had become sick from the virus and returned to her position after a week and a half of recovery, although she was then sent back home again. 

Despite having no mental conditions or illnesses, her father said he could see her pain of seeing patients dying, calling her a “casualty just as much as anyone else who has died,” and praising her heroism for fighting the disease “in the trenches on the front line.” 

Mental health experts are beginning to notice an increasing amount of PTSD cases among frontline health care workers, calling the group “the most at risk.” The overwhelming amount of patients and deaths to the disease has taken its toll on medics, although it seems to be getting slightly better, an ICU doctor at NYC said. 

“It felt like we were standing under a waterfall and couldn’t get a breath for air. Now it feels busy but not in a way that’s suffocating,” she said. 

The medic added, however, that it’s still very depressing to see her colleagues not come out of it, and to see so many patients die. The ICU doctor also said that people’s applause to support health care workers brings her mixed feelings. 

“The clappers make me cry whenever I hear them. But also it’s weird – because none of us feel like heroes because we feel so defeated by this disease.”