Three London Ambulance Service staff were today revealed to have died with coronavirus.
The most recent death, of paramedic Ian Reynolds, happened yesterday afternoon. He had been with the LAS for 32 years.
But neither Mr Reynolds nor his two colleagues — Gordon Ballard and Melonie Mitchell — were said to have been in frontline roles when they became ill.
LAS chief executive Garrett Emmerson told LBC radio: “The fact that none of these colleagues were working in direct contact with patients sadly illustrates the indiscriminate and lethal nature of this virus.
“They were all making fantastic individual contributions to the huge life-saving effort that the organisation has been making at this time. We are all just devastated.”
Mr Reynolds was working at New Addington ambulance station in a support role.
Mr Ballard was a manager at Bow station who had served for 42 years. Ms Mitchell was an NHS 111 service adviser at the LAS call centre in Barking.
LAS has about 6,000 staff, but about 550 are off work because they are ill with the virus or have had to self-isolate.
London firefighters have been recruited to drive ambulances.
Of Mr Reynold’s death, Mr Emmerson said: “This is obviously heartbreaking news and we have had very little time to get used to it, because up until yesterday afternoon, we were hoping for a better outcome.
"We are all just devastated. We’re losing people that we have known and loved and worked with for a number of years.”
Mr Emmerson added that the number of coronavirus cases attended by paramedics in London is falling and said his staff have the PPE kit that they need.
