New York Doctor Takes Own Life After Treating COVID-19 Patients

A top New York doctor died from suicide after helping treat COVID-19 patients.

Dr. Lorna Breen was the medical director at New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital's emergency department. The 49-year-old previously contracted COVID-19 while treating patients, but recovered.

Breen recovered and went back to work, but the hospital sent her back home, according to her father. She took her own life on Sunday in Charlottesville, Virginia where she was staying with family.

"She was in every sense of the word a hero, who gave her life for her friends and her city," her father told the NBC New York.

Police in Charlottesville reported Breen died from "self-inflicted injuries."

"Words cannot convey the sense of loss we feel today," New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital told NBC News. "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."