The Manhattan ER doctor who worked in the coronavirus trenches before her tragic Sunday suicide was known for her compassion, signature smile and fierce advocacy for patients, friends and neighbors said.
Dr. Lorna Breen loved to snowboard, organize social outings with coworkers and give every last ounce of strength pulling long shifts in the emergency department at NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, they told the Daily News in a series of interviews Tuesday.
“I’m completely dumbfounded that this happened. I would never have thought it,” longtime pal and former colleague Dr. Paris Lovett said in a phone interview.
“I don’t know how the hell this happened. Literally, I’ve got no idea,” he said. “She was not someone that I would have thought this would happen to, ever. She was just a very positive person.”
Breen, 49, succumbed to self-inflicted injuries at a hospital in Charlottesville, Va., Sunday after leaving New York to stay with family amid her own recovery from COVID-19, police and her father, Dr. Philip C. Breen, said.
The devastated dad told The News his daughter had returned to work after only recuperating at home for about a week and a half, and she appeared to be struggling.
“I think she felt guilty about not being at work when all her colleagues were killing (themselves) working,” he said.
“She went back when she was still sick, I think. The last time I talked to her was before she went in for her 12-hour shift that she couldn’t finish,” he said, describing her demeanor as strangely detached.
“She wasn’t there. There was somebody else talking to me. It wasn’t my daughter at all,” he said. “She was a very outgoing, very energetic person who, I don’t know what snapped, but something blew up in her.”
He said his daughter loved her job and was deeply affected by the onslaught of sick patients suffering and dying around her.
“She loved New York, and she loved New Yorkers," he said. “She just broke under the pressure.”
Lovett also described Breen as having an ebullient personality before the pandemic hit.
The doctor, now based in Pennsylvania, said he met Breen in 2004, when they both took posts at Columbia University Medical Center NewYork-Presbyterian as their first jobs out of residency.
“I really liked her a lot. She was a dear friend. People talk about work hard, play hard, she really personified that. She was high energy. She came in a room and always had a big smile on her face,” he said.
“She was a big presence,” he told The News. “She was very, very social. She brought a lot of people together that way. She had a lot of friends and got people out there enjoying life.”
Dr. Lovett said he left New York in 2010 but stayed in contact with Breen. He said they last texted a few weeks ago, and he still can’t believe the emergency department doctor he considered one of the best is now gone.
“If I was super sick or had a family member who was super sick, I would be happy if I looked up from my stretcher and saw she was going to be the ER doctor treating me,” he said.
He hailed Breen as a fierce patient advocate who proved her mettle over many years in emergency settings.
“The vast of majority of people in EDs have what’s called graveyard humor, the ability to look at difficult stuff and still be able to laugh. It’s a positive coping mechanism. She had it,” he said.
“A lot of people called her just Breen. Like, ‘Hey Breen.’ She was a tough person. She didn’t take bulls**t from people if it got in the way of taking care of patients,” he said.
He marveled at what she must have seen in recent weeks amid the city’s staggering coronavirus death toll, and the impact it may have had.
“I don’t think any of us not doing shifts in New York really have a picture of it. New York has an intensity to it. I can only speculate," he said.
Neighbors at Breen’s Greenwich Village apartment building hailed her as a dedicated doctor who worked around the clock to help others.
“She was a focused and really responsible woman. We’re heartbroken, those of us who knew her. She is clearly a hero,” neighbor Robin Felsher, 66, a retired transit worker, told The News.
Felsher recalled seeing Breen leave for work recently in her blue Porsche Carrera and mouthing the words “thank you” to her as the doctor smiled back before driving away.
“On a good day before COVID-19, her job was to make decisions about other people’s lives. One can only imagine what she was dealing with,” Felsher said. “She essentially gave her life to protect other people.”
Fellow neighbor Irwin Freire, 52, said he left lilies outside Breen’s door that his wife picked as a token of their grief.
“She was our neighbor, and we looked out for one another. She was a lovely woman, just great,” he said.
“She worked long shifts even before coronavirus. She was definitely dedicated. She was dedicated to others,” he said.
Dr. Breen’s death followed in the wake of the suicide of another front-line worker — EMT John Mondello, 23, who died by suicide using a gun that belonged to his retired NYPD cop father.
Mondello’s body was recovered along the shoreline in Astoria on Friday night.
For those in need of help, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is reachable 24 hours a day at 1-800-273-8255. NYC Well — the city’s free and confidential hotline — also offers mental or substance abuse over the phone at 1-888-NYC-WELL or via online chat at nycwell.cityofnewyork.us.
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