Michael Tsan Ty, 28, a promising young doctor who grew up in Atherton, was killed in a freak accident April 3 while driving to the Boston hospital where he worked.
The son of Bonnie and George Ty of Atherton, Dr. Ty was killed when a construction platform fell from an Emerson College dormitory on Boylston Street just after 1 p.m., crushing his car, said Boston police. Two construction workers were killed and two more were injured, police said. The cause of the accident is under investigation.
Dr. Ty, a 1995 graduate of Menlo School in Atherton, graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hopkins University in 1999, and earned his medical degree from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology in 2004.
He was in the first year of the combined neurology residency program at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital after completing an internship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
“From his earliest days he wanted to be doctor. I was thrilled to learn he achieved that,” said Norm Colb, the head of Menlo School. “What a loss.”
Mr. Colb, who served as Dr. Ty’s adviser while he was a student at Menlo, remembered him for his artistic abilities as well as his “prodigious intellect.”
“He was one of those students who just cut through even the most demanding courses; he was very ambitious,” Mr. Colb said. “What surprised everybody here as much as his intellect was his artistic abilities. He did some paintings that could have been, from my limited vantage point, of museum quality.”
While at HST, he did research in engineering micropatterned circuits for the study of neural development and plasticity. He was also awarded a Kennedy Sheldon Fellowship, which allowed him to study ethics and theology at the Pontifical Angelicum at the Vatican for a year.
Dr. Ty married Robin Crotty in 2004, according to two of his classmates at HST. The couple had recently moved to Roslindale, near Boston.
His family members released a statement on the HST alumni Web site thanking the community for its prayerful support and asking for privacy during their time of grief.
“Michael’s humble willingness to serve others and his devotion were an inspiration to all who were graced by his presence,” they said.
