A senior NYC doctor died by suicide after weeks of working on the coronavirus front lines, where her patients suffered heavily

• Dr. Lorna Breen, medical director of the emergency department at NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, died by suicide on Sunday.
• Breen's father said she had treated many coronavirus patients, and had been shaken by the suffering and death she witnessed on the job.
• "She tried to do her job, and it killed her," he told The New York Times.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A New York emergency-room doctor died by suicide over the weekend after describing to her family the great deal of suffering and death she witnessed while treating coronavirus patients.

Dr. Lorna Breen died of self-inflicted injuries on Sunday at UVA Hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia, local police said in a press release.

Breen was the medical director of the emergency department at NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital in Manhattan. She was staying with family in Virginia at the time of her death.

—The New York Times (@nytimes) April 27, 2020

Breen's father, Dr. Philip C. Breen, told The New York Times that she was seriously affected by working on the front lines of the coronavirus outbreak.

He said the last time he talked to her, she was distant, and he could tell something was wrong. He said she had described a terrifying scene at the hospital, with patients dying before they could even be taken out of the ambulance.

"She tried to do her job, and it killed her," her father said.

Breen's hospital, a 200-bed facility, had at its height been treating as many as 170 coronavirus patients a day, according to The Times. Fifty-nine people died at the hospital on April 7 alone, The Times reported.

Breen herself contracted coronavirus at one point, but was back at work a week and a half after recovering. However, she was later sent home from the hospital again, at which point her family brought her down to Virginia.

Her father said she had no history of mental illness.

"She was truly in the trenches of the front line," he told The Times. "Make sure she's praised as a hero, because she was. She's a casualty just as much as anyone else who has died."

Breen's hospital did just that in a statement about her death.

"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," the statement from NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia read.

Chief RaShall Brackney of the Charlottesville Police Department also said: "

"Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) can reduce the likelihood of being infected, but what they cannot protect heroes like Dr. Lorna Breen, or our first responders against is the emotional and mental devastation caused by this disease."

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