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Family of MIT student killed while riding bike in Cambridge sues for $30 million
Minh-Thi Nguyen was 24 when a box truck turned right into the bike lane on Hampshire Street last summer. She died at the hospital.
The family of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology student struck and killed by a box truck while biking in Cambridge is suing the truck’s company for more than $30 million, her family’s representatives announced.
Minh-Thi Nguyen, 24, was biking to her lab on Hampshire Street in Cambridge the morning of June 21 when a box truck turned right into the bike lane, striking her. She was transported to a hospital in Boston, where she died.
The complaint, filed in Middlesex Superior Court Wednesday, named Charles P. Blouin, Inc., a New Hampshire-based business that owned and operated the truck, and Michael Fitts, the employee who was driving the truck, as defendants.
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Her family is suing for $30 million related to a wrongful death and $28,096 related to medical expenses, according to court documents.
The Blouin employee struck Nguyen when he turned right from Hampshire Street onto Portland Street, according to the complaint. While she tried to avoid the truck, Nguyen went underneath the truck between the front and rear wheels. The truck driver continued driving and only stopped when a bystander yelled and waved at him, the complaint said.
Nguyen, known to friends as “Mint” and to family as “Chip,” was in her third year at MIT in a physics doctoral program after graduating from Princeton University in 2021, lawyers said. She had multiple published papers and worked at a quantum computing start-up before attending MIT.
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“My heart aches for my daughter, who worked tirelessly her entire life, striving for success, only to meet such an unfair and tragic end,” Hieu Nguyen, her father, said in a statement. “When she died, part of me died with her.”
Nguyen was wearing a helmet, following traffic laws, and traveling in a bike lane, according to a statement released by firm Sweeney Merrigan Law. Family, friends, and colleagues called Nguyen a rising talent within the scientific and quantum physics communities.
“Minh-Thi’s tragic death is an immeasurable loss for her family, the scientific community, and the world. She is totally blameless,” attorney J. Tucker Merrigan said in a statement. “There needs to be accountability for the 10-ton box truck that failed to yield the right of way and robbed the world of a brilliant mind and huge heart.”
A lawyer for Blouin did not return a request for comment Wednesday.
Nguyen was one of three bicyclists who died in Cambridge last summer, which spurred an outpouring of support from the biking community in Boston.
Kim Staley, a 55-year-old from Florida, was also struck and killed by a box truck turning into her path. Following Staley and Nguyen’s deaths, officials voiced support for proposed truck regulations that would add safety features to state-funded trucks.
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“These regulations will save lives. They would have saved the lives of Kim Staley and Minh-Thi Nguyen,” Cambridge Vice Mayor Marc McGovern wrote on X last summer.
John Concoran, of Newton, was struck by an SUV near the BU Boathouse while cycling on Memorial Drive in Cambridge. The 62-year-old was reportedly on the sidewalk.
On Memorial Drive, officials quickly rolled out some short-term safety changes, including a new speed limit reduction, while Cambridge City Council delayed a deadline to build 22 miles of separated bike lanes to allow the city to mitigate the loss of parking.
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