Hudson Valley Doctor, Two-Time Cancer Survivor Dies From COVID-19

A doctor and two-time cancer survivor who has worked in the Hudson Valley died from COVID-19. It's believed he contracted the virus due to a lack of equipment at work.

Dr. Frank Gabrin died on Tuesday at the age of 60 about a week after contracting COVID-19. Gabrin thought he got coronavirus from using the same face mask for an entire week, a longtime friend told the New York Post.

"He had one medical kit, including the face mask, for a whole week," Debra Vasalech Lyons told the New York Post. “He had one pair of gloves. They ran out of the large and extra-large gloves and Frank had to try to wear a size medium. Every time he put them on they ripped. They ran out of soap. When he got sick he told me, ‘I know exactly when I got sick. It’s when I had to reuse my mask.'"

Gabin was working as an ER surgeon at East Orange General Hospital in New Jersey at the time. The emergency physician also worked at Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Poughkeepsie and St. Johns Riverside Hospital ParkCare Pavilion in Yonkers, according to Vitals.com

"He lost his life needlessly because if he'd had the equipment ...he's a professional, he knew how to protect himself," Lyons told CNN.