“My dad was a big story teller,” Stephanie said. “He would always tell these stories and he would be so vibrant and so funny and he would be really truly like a character.”
Mahoney brought that energy to the physically and mentally taxing treatment of critically ill Covid-19 patients at the beginning of the pandemic.
New York City is considered an epicenter of the virus, with more than 191,000 cases since March,
according to city data.
All the patients at SUNY Downstate have suffered from Covid-19 — it’s one of three hospitals in the state ordered by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to dedicate itself entirely to dealing with the pandemic in late March.
Four patients died of the virus in one hour that CNN visited SUNY Downstate in early April.
“One of those days in the early kind of beginning, he called me and just was like, ‘you know Steph, this has been one of the hardest days I’ve ever had in in medicine,'” his daughter said.
Though he worked day shifts at SUNY Downstate, nights at Kings County Hospital Center and served an outpatient practice, Mahoney’s kids saw him as ubiquitous.
Mahoney has three children, Jamie, 31, Stephanie, 27, and Ryan, 25.
“You would’ve thought he had more hours in the day than anybody,” Stephanie said.
Mahoney managed to coach his kids in several sports as they grew up.
“No matter how hard he worked, how long he was at the hospital, he was always there for me growing up. One day he’d be at Downstate, next night at Kings County and during the day coaching my teams and picking me up. He was always here,” his son, Ryan Mahoney, told CNN.
Just like his dad, his son Ryan played collegiate baseball and is now pursuing a medical degree at Rutgers University.
“He got me through everything I did — my number one guy, my best friend and my hero.”
His daughter, who’s in law school at Howard University, said he’d even talk to her about medicine.
“Even through his stories he was always teaching us things and teaching us how to be,” Stephanie said.
“He would explain a procedure or something like that. And I’d be, like, ‘I mean, I wasn’t calling about this, dad, but sure, you can tell me about that.’ He kind of was unbelievable in that way.”
He was a work-hard, play-hard kind of guy, his kids said.

Mahoney loved to travel and usually with his family. “He loved to cruise,” Stephanie said.
They’d go on family vacations once or twice a year — he and his kids and their extended family since he’s one of five.
He’d play Craps in the casino and teach anyone the game if they’d let him.
They hoped to go on a trip together when the worst of the pandemic passed, according to Stephanie.
“He worked hard but he also liked to enjoy his life. Even when coronavirus hit he was saying, ‘I had to cancel my trip I’m sad about it,'” she said.
‘He was a doctor right up until the end’
Doctors at Downstate were starting to see the number of critically ill patients shrink by the end of April around the time Mahoney caught the virus, Foronjy told CNN. The hospital has since closed several expanded ICU units no longer needed.
“As soon as we thought we were getting over it, this happened,” Vaitkus said.
“It was a gut punch. It sucks your spirit to know you’re trying to do as much as you can for these patients.”
Mahoney checked himself into the emergency department at his own hospital after suffering a week of fever and mild symptoms, according to his family.
“He was a doctor right up until the end,” Foronjy told CNN.
Mahoney was eventually admitted to the ICU and was directing his own medical care up until he was sedated and intubated , according to Foronjy.
“He embodied excellence. The level of skill — that’s a real loss,” Foronjy said.
Unlike thousands of others who died of Covid-19 without loved ones near due to visitor restrictions, Mahoney was surrounded by people who loved him at the hospital in his last days.