On Monday, April 3rd, Michael Tsan Ty, 28, was crushed to death in his car when a 10-ton scaffolding fell from a construction site 13 stories overhead. According to the Boston Globe, Ty was still wearing his green hospital scrubs when he fell victim to the freak accident on Boylston St. A native of Atherton, California, Ty earned his B.A. and became a member of Phi Beta Kappa at Johns Hopkins University and graduated from the combined MIT-Harvard Division of Health Sciences and Technology in 2004. At the time of his death he was a neurology resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Ty is widely remembered as having been a high-achiever. The Globe quotes Ty’s high school Latin teacher as recalling that he “always wanted to be the very, very best.” The director of the MIT-Harvard program, Mriganka Sur, described him as a “tremendous student.”

However, Ty did not mindlessly tread the established route toward becoming a doctor. As a devout Catholic, he was troubled by ethical issues related to science—the MIT news office reports that Ty did his M.D. research on the controversial issue of growing brain cells apart from the human body. After graduating from Medical School, Ty received the Kennedy Sheldon Fellowship, enabling him to study ethics and theology in Vatican City for a year. Here Ty met his future wife, Robin Crotty, with whom he created a Catholic theater company called Fiat Productions, Ltd. in 2002. The National Catholic Reporter applauded the couple’s dedication, noting that they took out a personal loan of $15,000 to fund their production of Arthur’s Giron’s play, [i Edith Stein.] Aware of the play’s potentially contentious interfaith themes, Ty and Crotty obtained a blessing on their production from the Holy See.

A coworker’s blog registers a gut reaction to the randomness of Ty’s death with a heartfelt “what the fuck???” Becoming more articulate, the coworker recalls that Ty used to drive a sea-foam scooter, enjoyed fishing, and shared out homemade salmon sushi to his lab-mates as a thank-you for their work.

Ty is survived by his wife, Robin, both of his parents, George and Bonnie Tsan Ty, and his younger sister, Monica.