I had a very odd experience with this as an undergrad. It was actually a professor in the business school...unlike psychology, undergrads were not in any way involved in research there since like most business programs, ours was geared almost entirely towards industry sector jobs. I was the oddball who wanted to do it, so they actually set me up with the chair to figure out how to make it happen. We chatted for about an hour, it went great. We bonded over our mutual love of playing tennis once he found out I was working as a tennis instructor. He was really excited that I actually wanted to get involved in research and go the academic route, and made arrangements to "take me under his wing" so to speak, and get started in the fall.
We were firing emails back and forth over the summer, he had me reading a lot of his stuff, but then he stopped responding to emails halfway through the summer and I got worried I had upset him somehow even though our interactions had been nothing but positive. Eventually one of his grad students tracked me down and I found out he had a heart attack playing tennis, and passed away. Very surreal experience. The entire department was devastated by it, his grad students were trying to mourn, but also trying to sort out what it meant for their own lives and careers without seeming disrespectful, which was obviously a very difficult line to walk and I don't envy that situation.
