A retired policeman with coronavirus died alone on the street after leaving hospital with a 40 degree fever.
Yon Chang was said to be suffering hallucinations and texted his friend Dr Marvin Moy to say he'd checked himself out of Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, New York, against doctors' advice.
The 56-year-old former NYPD sergeant reportedly claimed the ER was full of Nazis, goblins and ghosts after discharging himself at 2am on April 7.
Concerned by his sick friend's worrying messages - shared with New York Daily News on Wednesday - Marvin went looking for him, before dragging him back to the hospital.
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In the entrance to the Emergency Department, Marvin said Chang collapsed but an NYPD officer and hospital staff member guarding the door refused to allow him back in, it is claimed.
"The man was clearly not in his right mind," explained Marvin. "He was obviously highly infectious... The man had hours to live."
The hospital has refuted Marvin's claims, arguing that Chang refused to be re-admitted having already ignored staff's advice and walked out earlier in the day.
In garbled texts in the early hours, Chang told Marvin how he was "low energy" and sat on a door stoop, to which his friend told him to "get back to hospital" and adding: "You're going to crash and die."
Moy told him he would come find him and bring protective equipment, eventually finding him with a spiking fever and rushed him back to ER.
But after he was allegedly refused re-entry, Marvin told his friend to stay in the entrance while he got him some snacks to get his energy up.
However, on his return Chang had vanished, with Marvin texting him that he had Red Bull and other food and drink, and that it was starting to rain.
"I need you to muster all your energy and respond back to me," he added, though Chang never responded.
Marvin told the Daily News he assumed the hospital staff had changed their minds and taken him in to treat him and so he went home.
But the next morning he saw on the news a body had been discovered and his "heart sank".
Chang's body was found on a traffic island at E 77th St and Park Ave by hospital staff as they headed to work that morning.
Marvin said he wanted his late friend's family to know "someone was there" for him before he died.
The former police officer had joined the NYPD in 1994, before he was promoted to sergeant in 2006, then retiring in 2014.
Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, said Chang's passing is "tragic" and he offered his sympathies to his family.
Mr Mullins added that the pandemic is like a "science-fiction movie" without an end in sight, "hitting the people who are closest to us".
