22-Year-Old Google Engineer Dies At His Work Terminal (nypost.com)

"A Google software engineer has been found dead inside the company's Chelsea headquarters," reports the New York Post: A janitor found 22-year-old Scott Krulcik unconscious at his work terminal on the sixth floor of the building on Eighth Avenue near West 16th Street around 9 p.m. on Friday, police sources said. EMS workers tried to perform CPR but to no avail. Krulcik was pronounced dead at the scene.
"Krulcik's Linkedin page says he began working at Google in August," reports long-time Slashdot reader McGruber, adding that "Police sources say that his body did not show any signs of trauma, nor did he have a history of medical conditions or substance abuse problems."

Comments

Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

A 22-year-old man is DEAD and the asshats on this site are making their usual pathetic jokes?

This site needs an enema with a power washer.

Re: Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's a white guy, he's expendable

Re:Seriously?

[Calydor]

As someone else said, there are 7.7 billion people on the planet and 1.8 billion seconds in a 90 year life span.

None of us here knew the guy, what are we supposed to do? Go into hysterics because he's dead and it's so TERRIBLE AND THE WORLD HAS ENDED AND NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME EVER AGAIN!

Do you realize how many people died around the world while I was typing this very post? Do you mourn all of them? And if so, do you then mourn the people who died while you mourned the first group?

Re:Seriously?

[hcs_$reboot]

Seriously? This is what makes this site different, read the +5 jokes, they're not mocking the guy or his family, they're about bringing a relaxed atmosphere to a dramatic subject. Typical SJW.

This is news?

[markdavis]

Although it is tragic that someone in their 20's drops dead at work.... to me, this is not so rare or interesting. And because it happened at Google, that doesn't really make it "news for nerds." Besides, he has only been at Google for a few months.

Now, if he were some famous tech person, or if his death was linked to tech work, or computer work, or has a technological link or the situation contained some science or part of some study... perhaps that would be interesting. Right now we know almost NOTHING about why he died. Congenital defect, drug abuse, rare disease, accidentally poisoned, stroke, nothing.

Re:This is news?

[dsgrntlxmply]

It is interesting because sudden death at age 22 ought to be rare. Recall the recent death of a young woman at University of Maryland from an adenovirus infection, followed by the discovery there of around 30 more cases of adenovirus, some requiring hospitalization. Over the years, clusters of adenovirus and of meningitis have arisen in situations where young people are making a transition into living in close quarters with others: dorms, military training, and how about someone starting work in an expensive urban area? (Silicon Valley Airbnb listings have several dorm-like situations specifically marketed to young technical workers.)

Aneurysms, cardiac electrical defects, septicemia and valve damage following dental work (prime age for wisdom tooth extraction)... My worst episodes of flu (or perhaps something with flu-like symptoms, like adenovirus) were between ages 18 and 27. At age 18 I was failing to recover from what seemed like flu, then developed high fever that affected my judgment; someone finally noticed and dragged me to the doctor: bacterial pneumonia.

A colleague of mine some years ago, age mid 30's, was out of work with what began as typical flu. It evolved badly, attacked his heart, and left him with 20% loss of heart function.

The case is of public interest: a person at an age where serious consequences of undiscovered congenital defects can appear, increased exposure through new living situations, immune system not yet hardened by previous exposures, "it's just the flu", and the idea that one ought to just power through any situation.

There is an immediate lesson that does not require a medical examiner's findings from one tragic case. If you have someone age 17-28 in your family situation or in your general circumstances, yes this is the physically most capable age where people do amazing things, but it also has special vulnerabilities, including suddenly dropping dead on a basketball court. Keep watch and be aware that, though occurrence is rare, things can go bad quickly for those with undiscovered defects, or who become infected by something especially bad.

I wish there is a way to help solve the mystery ..

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

If only there is a sort of black box like they have in airplanes ...

Some company that tracks every email, every text, every search and logs them all, making it available for the police to reconstruct the last few events and keystrokes of a dead person .... If only such a company existed they can help the police ....

Re:Still suspicious

[thegarbz]

Can I interest you in a jump to conclusions mat? They are great. You can just claim something as suspicious based on an article with only around 200 words, most of which you clearly didn't read otherwise you'd know that the medical examiner is already tasked with determining the cause of death.

Re:Another case of sudden heart attack death

[quantaman]

Infection, even from a flue, can in rare cases cause heart attacks. My brother had this happen at 25 years old. The worst part was that the ER nurses at the hospital thought he was just some kid OD'ing on drugs so gave him the lowest priority, as someone that young is unlikely to have a "legitimate" heart problem. It took yelling from his CO showing up several minutes later to convince them he wasn't some guy who just stumbled in from an alleyway. Normally, if you were a bit older, and mention having any sort of chest or heart problem in an ER, you get swarmed by people checking if it is a heart attack.

That said, I don't know why this is news. There is some chance of people dying at any age from unknown medical conditions or some really bad luck. Unless this is directly related to his work at Google, then it is something that happens at any large company from time to time.

A few years back a female friend, probably about 26 at time time, had some sort of bad chest infection (not a cold, but probably not life threatening). Either way she went to the doctor and mentioned it was giving her chest pains... 10 minutes later they had her in emergency for an overnight visit.

It did take her a few weeks to fully recover from the infection, but "chest pains" turned out ot be a magic phrase that escalated things very quickly.

Re:Still suspicious

[sunking2]

Autopsies are always done when the cause of death isn't known, suspicious or not. 99% of them are done for purely medical history reasons.

Re:so?

[Mr D from 63]

Every once is a while, someone who appears to be perfectly healthy just suddenly dies. Film at 11.

Is there some reason we would should be surprised that Google employees are not exempt from this possibility?

Re:I wish there is a way to help solve the mystery

[Anonymous Coward]

"Whooosh" doesn't have the intended effect if the joke wasn't funny to begin with.

Re:so?

[Kjella]

Every once is a while, someone who appears to be perfectly healthy just suddenly dies. Film at 11. Is there some reason we would should be surprised that Google employees are not exempt from this possibility?

Well it's not really once in a while anymore, it's rare. From the mortality tables here in Norway the average 22 year old has a 0.0473% chance of dying that year. And of those it's about 1/3rd accidents/violence, 1/3rd suicide and 1/3rd medical conditions. From there I'd have to speculate based on diagnosis how many of those conditions were previously completely unknown, but it's definitively a minority so the risk of unexpectedly dropping dead is <0.01% and quite possibly much lower than that too.