Police say a 6-year-old girl died this week after being hit in the head by a stray badminton racquet shaft while on vacation with her family in Maine.
The girl, named Lucy Morgan from Stockholm, New Jersey, died Wednesday at Maine Medical Center in Portland. She was in an accident on June 1 at noon in Limerick, which is about 30 miles west of Portland, and died there.
Police and her father both say that she was hit while playing badminton with her brothers in the front yard of a lake cottage in Limerick.
Jesse Morgan is the father. He is the pastor of worship and teaching at Green Pond Bible Chapel in Newfoundland, New Jersey. In a blog related to the nondenominational school, he wrote about what happened to Lucy.
He said that lunch was over for the family and that he and his wife were in the back of the house when they heard screaming in front.
“Because of a freak accident with a racquet that broke on a downward swing, a sharp piece had gone into Lucy’s head while she was sitting on the sidelines and seriously hurt her,” he wrote. “She wasn’t moving or breathing while I held her and prayed to God with her mother Bethany.”
State police said that the “aluminum shaft of a badminton racquet had come loose from the wooden handle,” which is what hit the girl in the head and pierced her brain.
They said Lucy was taken to MaineHealth Maine Medical Center in Sanford and then flown to Maine Medical Center in Portland by chopper.
Jesse Morgan wrote that Lucy had hypoxic–ischemic encephalopathy, which is brain damage that can happen when the brain doesn’t get enough oxygen. He said it was clear by Wednesday that she wasn’t coming back.
If you look at the initial impact that caused the global hypoxic brain injury she had and how bad the swelling was, it was almost certain that she had died of brain damage, Morgan wrote.
He said that she was pronounced dead that morning.
At first, it wasn’t clear if Maine’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner did an autopsy or just planned one. There, spokespeople were working on an answer to a question about facts.
When Lucy died, Morgan wrote about how it hurt her mother and their three other kids—a 4-year-old boy, an 8-year-old girl, and a 10-year-old boy.
The minister wrote that Shiloh, who was eight years old, “broke down right away.” “Being in the middle, she and Lucy are best friends.”
Morgan wrote that the “calamity” put his faith to the test.
“We were ready to fight every one of you in a war against the darkness,” he said.
The minister wrote that the outpouring of support, including visits from family, other church leaders, and members, gifts of food and flowers, and letters of support from some of the tens of thousands of people who read his posts, were reminders of God’s kindness.
“There was and is proof of God’s grace in this tragedy, like gold at the bottom of a deep, dark well. We just had to be willing to dig deep to find it,” he said.
An event to honor Lucy will take place at Green Pond Bible Chapel on June 15.
She told NBC News on Friday, “I want her story to be one of hope.” “The worst thing that could have happened has helped other people.”
