The former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has died from injuries following a car crash on Sept. 6, officials say.
The fatal collision was between two cars just after 5 a.m., the Los Alamos Police Department said in a news release. First responders arrived on scene and "began treating three patients involved in the crash."
Police said a 69-year-old man, who was later identified by Los Alamos National Laboratory as Charles McMillan, was taken to a hospital, where he died from his injuries. A 22-year-old woman was also taken to a hospital and "treated for minor injuries."
McMillan was an experimental physicist who oversaw the lab from 2011 to 2017, following decades of research in various positions at Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratories, according to the LANL and the Associated Press. He made New Mexico his permanent home after retiring seven years ago, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.
"Yesterday, we had to take an alternate route out of town because the front hill road was closed due to an accident," former computational physicist at Los Alamos Michael Hall wrote in a post on Facebook. "I heard that a 69-year-old man had died. I wondered if I knew him. Then the news came. Everybody knew him."
McMillan's tenure as LANL director saw numerous advancements in nuclear research, HIV vaccine development and Mars exploration, according to a statement by the lab.
It was also a time marked by safety incidents like the 2014 radiation leak that resulted in the state of New Mexico issuing the federal government a fine of $54 million, according to the Associated Press.
Operational missteps like these dating back generations have prompted outcries from neighbors and concern about the health effects of nuclear research, ABC News reported.
An anomaly of a community with its roots in the Manhattan Project, Los Alamos has remained a tight-knit government foothold in the rural southwest, and the sudden loss of the lab's major figurehead has former colleagues reeling.
"Such a huge loss for our small community here -- and of course, the broader scientific community," Lab spokesperson Laura Mullane told McClatchy News in an email.
"His work had an important impact on our mission and that of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and helped set the stage for success in many critical areas of focus, like AI," Los Alamos National Laboratory director Thom Mason said in the statement. "We will certainly miss his enthusiasm and passion for our work, but the loss of Charlie as a mentor, colleague and friend is a greater tragedy."
Police said the crash remains under investigation.
"The Los Alamos Police Department sends our condolences to the families and all those affected by the accident," police said.
Los Alamos is about a 30-mile drive northwest of Santa Fe.