MIT Graduate Dies After Falling Off Building
CAMBRIDGE (CBS) - The call came into Cambridge Police for a 24-year-old trying to climb a building and falling multiple stories. His family confirms Nicholas Paggi, a 2015 Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, died after climbing onto the roof near the infamous MIT dome.
"He came down the side of one of the roofs, came across the front and slipped going back up the other side," his mother Helga Paggi tells WBZ-TV from her home in New Jersey.
Police had trouble finding him to assist, but when he was located in the bushes they say there was no pulse. His mother believes it was all for fun, and MIT students say pranks are not uncommon.
"Try and leave their mark, getting into the nooks and crannies of the campus," said student Skyler Kaufman.
Nicholas Paggi was an accomplished computer programmer who was with roommates that are still graduate students at MIT. "He took his school and work very seriously and was successful at both," said his mother.
As a student, Paggi worked at MIT's D-Lab which develops new technologies to help impoverished nations and remained a consultant. His sudden death is now a shock.
"He was one of the greatest computer programmers I've worked with," said Dr. Rich Fletcher, director of the group. "He was a great mentor to all students, it's such a loss to all of us."