Former NMU student Bryce Hoduski was pronounced dead on the evening of Tuesday, Feb. 25 in the emergency room at Marquette General Hospital, according to Detective Lieutenant Michael Wasie of the Marquette police department. Wasie said there is a strong possibility that it was natural causes, but the autopsy results and toxicology results will not be available for two to three weeks.

“Preliminarily, it looks to be medical,” Wasie said. “There’s a very strong possibility that it was medical complications.”He said EMS responded to the 911 call and transported him to MGH emergency room.

“While in transport, he was having complications also,” Wasie said. “When he got to the emergency room, he was [cognizant] at that point, but he coded and they weren’t able to bring him back.”Hoduski was a senior management business major at NMU and was not a student at the time of his death, according to NMU Communications and the Dean of Students Office, who had no further comment.

His mother, Tammy Hoduski, a graduate of Northern, said they will have a memorial service in their hometown of Houghton at a time to be determined.“When he was a little boy, we used to call him ‘Smiling Jack,’ because he always had a grin on his face,” she said. “He was a social little boy; he could talk to strangers, and was so loving toward his mother and everybody. So optimistic and so kind, he had a great smile and a great laugh.

“He would give me big bear hugs every time he saw me,” she said. “I’m going to miss those bear hugs.”His girlfriend, Kate Nordlund, a senior speech, language and hearing sciences major, said she made the 911 call.

“[Tuesday] afternoon, I was at class and he contacted me and said he wasn’t feeling well,” she said. “I rushed over. He came out of the house, he collapsed and I called the ambulance.”She said he was pronounced dead at about 5:20 p.m.“He was probably the greatest person you’d ever meet,” she said. “The greatest boyfriend, friend, son, brother, uncle. He worked hard and he always loved going to Northern.”

Hoduski’s sister, Elisabeth Dennis, said he was outgoing and well-loved. “My brother, he could walk into a room and have a conversation with anyone,” she said. “He could make friends at the drop of a dime. “I mean he was my little brother, so I kind of thought he was little shit sometimes, but really he was a better person than I am.”

James Sheff, senior hospitality management major and ASNMU professional studies representative, said he had known Hoduski since his first hospitality class at NMU.

“Bryce radiated good intentions,” Sheff said. “He was the kind of person where if a class was getting frustrated or tense, he was really good at diffusing the situation, getting people to laugh and realize what we’re doing isn’t so serious.”

Sheff said Hoduski’s smile was constant.“You know how people that have had a lot of shit happen to them are really good at dealing with shit?” he said. “That was him.”

Sheff said he talked to Hoduski on Tuesday.“I talked to him that day at 2 p.m. and he sounded exactly like the Bryce I’ve always known,” Sheff said. “He’s always been consistently happy.”