James Mahoney, an ICU doctor who delayed retirement to fight covid-19, died of the disease

“And an enthusiastic hit,” said Chisholm.

His family claimed he would continue to retire, and he included his brother Melvin Mahony, who is also a doctor. His boss, Robert F. Foronji, was a doctor, especially a doctor who was at high risk of developing novel complications, Coronavirus, Given the opportunity to step back.

But James Mahoney rejected this. And to some extent, his colleagues and family thought he would.

“He gave everything to the hospital,” Melvin Mahony told the Washington Post. “He gave his life for the hospital.”

Before it came to him, Mahoney witnessed the viral victims of his patient in the ICU—not only in the SUNY downstate, but also across the Kings County Hospital Center where he took the shift. He was sometimes sleeping there, his brother said. According to Follony, Mahoney had a new coronavirus patient who needed critical care every hour.

He worked on the patient until the Terthere fever creeped on him in mid-April until he could no longer do so. It didn’t get better.

The 62-year-old man died of the virus on April 27, and his beloved colleague, his second family, was on his side. From the time he was taken to the emergency room with shortness of breath, he started as a medical student, worked in 1982, and was treated by a colleague from the same hospital he was studying. Eventually he died in a tissue hospital equipped with a more sophisticated blood oxygenator, and Foronzi and his four other closest colleagues collaboratively escorted him from Brooklyn to Manhattan in two ambulances. ..

“Two hospitals are crying. Melvin Mahony talks about two of his older brothers working.” I’ve heard men cry so you can’t believe it. How much I loved you. “

Mahoney has survived three children, four brothers, his father, and a long-time girlfriend, a nurse. He is the latest health care worker to die at the forefront of New York, the epicenter of the pandemic, with 911 calls surpassing 9/11 last month. He is not even the only health care worker in the family to get the virus. Chisholm, who works as a nurse to monitor employee health at St. John’s Episcopalian Hospital, also became infected in April.

Foronjy said Mahony’s death was crushed. Forensie said he was the “heart and soul” of their division and the “organization within himself.” He seemed to help everyone at the hospital, from the cashier in the gift shop to the taxi driver waiting outside. Even the caretaker called him “Charlie”, the name only his friends called him his brother.

“We were all his relatives,” said Foronsey. “He was a very open minded person, and he had really emotional access to people. That’s one of the reasons many of us are having a hard time dealing with this. It seems too unfair, benevolent, this selfless, this kind of skilled person can be defeated by this disease. “

Foronji Created GoFundMe Intended to fund tuition for aspiring African American doctors, efforts to take over the legacy of his friends. Although he was a mentor to both colleagues and trainees, his advice resonated specifically with the black medical student who looked up at him. 1 Told the New York Times “Our Jay Z” that he and other black aspiring doctors considered him a legend.

“I was a young black man, so when I saw this man, I told myself,“ I want to be like him 20 years from now, ”” said Latif A. Salam, a physician at SUNY Downstate. On Tuesday when I told the Times.

Born in Garden City, New York in 1958, James Mahony grew up near his former Mitchell Air Force Base on Long Island, where his father worked in the Air Force. From an early age, his work ethic was strong. By the time he was eight years old, he worked in his deli and luncheon with his brother Melvin.

As a seasoned athlete, Mahoney wants to become a baseball player as a teenager, Melvin said. But he aimed to become a doctor while taking Melvin on a trip to a hospital on Long Island. I started as a medical student of SUNY Downstate in 1982.

Chisholm said that as Mahonei’s career progressed, he had many opportunities to move to other large or wealthy hospitals. SUNY down state, A national hospital, where there is little funding Serving the low-income minority area of ​​Brooklyn.

But Mahony didn’t want to go.

“He was like being born and raised in that hospital,” Chisham said. “He went to the medical school there. He lived there. He was the chief who lives there. He fellowship there. And he started practicing there.” In the end, she was always a hospital. “It didn’t really seem like a job to him. It was a part of him.”

Mr Foronji said his personality was greater than his life. It’s the intersection of the late comedian Barney Mack and Gregory House, a fictional doctor on the TV show “House.” The boss said he knew exactly when to provide support and when to ask the trainees to do better. And if anybody went off line, his brother said, Mahoney was not the one who shreds to inform them.

“He was like a good coach for baseball and soccer teams,” Foronjy says of Mahoney, who was actually a former baseball and soccer coach. “He knew how to push people’s buttons and get the most out of them.”

Foronjy was almost unaware of the man who arrived in the emergency room on April 20th.

Mahoney had a hard time breathing. He could hardly walk. Over the years, Mahony’s condition worsened, though he insisted that he and his family and friends felt better at the hospital. Chisholm said he appreciated the FaceTime phone, even if he could hardly speak.

But his family found a loving person, knowing that Mahony didn’t have to fight the virus alone. He knew and trusted everyone to take care of him.

“I was able to hold his hand and tell him how much I love him and how much everyone loves him,” Forongi said.

By the end, Mahoney claimed he still didn’t want to leave the hospital and even went to Manhattan in search of more sophisticated machines.

Just before he died, he told his girlfriend, “I’m at home,” because he was always surrounded by colleagues in the same place.