College Student Interns After Brother Dies (Exclusive)

• Brian Peck died of cardiac arrest in his dorm room at age 20, before he could begin an internship at medical device company Medtronic
• His brother Colin, now 21, has taken over the internship and is working on devices that could save his brother.
• Colin also organised EKGs at his high school driving school, which helped discover previously undiagnosed heart conditions in his classmates.

Colin Peck recalls one of his last conversations with his older brother Brian.

Brian, a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, spent the 2019 holiday break at home.

“We stayed up until 5 a.m. talking about the future of technology and what we wanted to do with our lives,” Colin, now 21, told PEOPLE in an exclusive interview.

“The last day I saw him, I thought I would go to his room and hug him one last time before I go to school,” says the Orland Park, Illinois, native.

“I hesitated because I didn’t want to wake him up. I decided to go in and hug him before he left. And that’s the one thing I’m so happy I did.”

Less than a month later, Brian, then 20, died in his dorm room from an undiagnosed arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat) that had caused a sudden heart attack.

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While in his third year of college studying biomedical engineering and computer science, Brian planned to do an internship at medical device manufacturer Medtronic.

Colin accepted the internship.

“Colin is an inspiration to all of us at Medtronic,” Becky Kieffer, who manages the company’s early career program, tells PEOPLE. “We’re truly honored to have him here this summer, following in Brian’s footsteps and helping others with heart problems.”

Colin, who is studying computer engineering and computer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says, “I felt like I was starting to lean more and more into using my education for good. And now I get to work in this department that works with technology that could have saved Brian’s life.”

As he explains, “Any heart monitoring device would certainly have detected an arrhythmia.”

As Colin tells PEOPLE, “I want to channel my grief into change, impact, and growth. So the motivation and passion that comes from knowing what happened to him makes me want to prevent it from happening again.”

He’s already put that plan into action at his high school, arranging for his classmates to have EKG sessions — a “quick test” to diagnose heart attacks and irregular heartbeats, the Mayo Clinic explains — that may have already saved a life.

“We’ve had EKGs that have detected dangerous arrhythmias in people,” Colin tells PEOPLE. “And they’ve been able to cure them.”

“Young people believe they are invincible,” she tells PEOPLE. “Brian was 20 years old and in perfect health, and it was just taken away from him.”

“I always think about a potential future where he would be my mentor,” she tells PEOPLE, adding that during her time at Medtronic, “everything I do here I see from him.”