The coronavirus pandemic has created so many heroes who have given their time and for some, their lives, to help others. One particular Brooklyn doctor, who delayed his retirement to help those affected by COVID-19, has died from the virus, according to MSN.
Dr. James Mahoney, 62, worked as a pulmonary and critical care physician at the University Hospital of Brooklyn during the day and did double duty at Kings County Hospital Center at night. The esteemed professional died on April 27 after his own battle with COVID-19.
The doctor died with his closest colleagues, who were his second family, at his side. From the time he took himself to the hospital’s emergency room, suffering from shortness of breath, he was treated by his colleagues in the same hospital where he had worked and studied since 1982.
His family insisted that he follow through on his retirement plans, including his brother Melvin Mahoney, who is also a doctor. The doctors were allowed to take a step back since they were at higher risk of suffering complications from the novel coronavirus.
He ultimately passed away at Tisch Hospital, which had more sophisticated blood-oxygenation equipment, and where Mahoney’s boss, Dr. Robert F. Foronjy, and four of his closest colleagues personally escorted him from Brooklyn to Manhattan traveling in two ambulances.
“He gave everything to that hospital,” Melvin Mahoney told The Washington Post. “He gave his life for that hospital.”
“There are two hospitals crying. Nonstop,” Mahoney continued. “I’ve heard men crying like you wouldn’t believe. That’s how much they loved my brother.”
“We were all his relatives,” Dr. Foronjy said. “He was a very openhearted person, really emotionally accessible to people as well, which is one of the reasons a lot of us are having a hard time coping with this. It just seems so unjust that someone who was this benevolent, this selfless, this kind, this skilled could be brought down by this disease.”
Foronjy has started a GoFundMe so he can help finance tuition for an aspiring African American doctor, an effort to carry on his friend’s legacy.
Mahoney is survived by his three children, four siblings, his father, and his longtime girlfriend, who is a nurse.