A Russian doctor suffered a mysterious fall from a hospital window and was left battling for his life after he complained about being forced to work despite testing positive for COVID-19.

His fall represents the third case of a paramedic in the country plunging from a hospital building under mysterious circumstances in the past two weeks, according to local reports. The two previous doctors have succumbed to their injuries.

The paramedic, Alexander Shulepov, 37, who works at the hospital’s ambulance unit, sustained a skull fracture after the fall and listed in critical condition in the same hospital where he worked and was being treated for the coronavirus. Police launched an investigation into Shulepov’s fall from the hospital in the Voronezh region, about 300 miles down South from Moscow.

Shulepov and his colleague Alexander Kosyakin sounded the alarm about their alleged wrongful exploitation in a video a few days prior to the fall and posted it online. Police interrogated Kosyakin on suspicion of spreading fake news, according to reports.

Shulepov later backtracked on his statement in another video while being treated for the virus at the hospital, saying he, while doing so, was in an emotional state right after testing positive for COVID-19. Police, after his fall, are now looking at whether he was pressured to film that statement.

The two doctors who died earlier had been identified as Dr. Natalya Lebedeva, 48, and Dr. Yelena Nepomnyashchaya, 47. The former jumped to her death from a Moscow hospital after she was blamed for spreading the coronavirus at her clinic after being tested positive, whilst the latter, a mother-of-two, jumped to her death from a hospital in the city of Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, after voicing concerns about “acute shortage” of PPE for those tending to COVID-19 patients.

The Moscow hospital had called Lebedeva’s death an “accident.” According to reports, Nepomnyashchaya was on a conference call with regional Health Minister Boris Nemik when she fell to her death.

Russia has recorded at least 145,268 coronavirus cases as of Monday, with 1,356 total deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

coronavirus infection in Russia has been steadily increasing over the past few weeks
coronavirus infection in Russia has been steadily increasing over the past few weeks Анна Иларионова - Pixabay
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