Northeast

New Jersey girl, 6, remembered as 'bubbly' with 'haunting beauty' following tragic badminton accident: family

Published

2 years ago

June 9, 2024

New Jersey girl, 6, remembered as 'bubbly' with 'haunting beauty' following tragic badminton accident: family

The father of a 6-year-old New Jersey girl who died from head trauma after a freak accident involving a badminton racket on the final day of a family vacation recalled his daughter’s “bubbly” personality and the afternoon their family changed forever.

Jesse Morgan, whose 6-year-old daughter Lucy unexpectedly died after playing with her siblings, shared with Fox News Digital memories about his daughter.

“Her personality was very bubbly and also reserved at times,” he said. “Once you got to know her, she was very, very outspoken and a lot of fun. She was a tough kid and played soccer really hard.”

NEW JERSEY GIRL, 6, DIES IN TRAGIC BADMINTON ACCIDENT 4 WEEKS AFTER ASKING ‘HOW TO BE WITH GOD AND BE SAVED’

Lucy Morgan, 6, during the family’s vacation in Maine. (Jesse Morgan via New Creation Living Blog)

Jesse recalled looking at pictures of Lucy with his daughter and wife, Bethany.

“My wife just made the comment that her beauty is haunting. Some of those pictures are just, she’s just so gorgeous, and her personality is so incredible,” he said.

Jesse recalled that Lucy was the “main cuddler” of their family of six.

“I just remember her coming up with her bedhead [hair] and just wanting to sit with you for a long time. Not restless, just wants to lie with you and snuggle up.”

Lucy with her three siblings while on vacation in Maine. Lucy told her parents the day of the accident it was the “best week of her life.” (Jesse Morgan via New Creation Living Blog)

Lucy with her two brothers and her father while on vacation in Limerick, Maine. Lucy was taken by medical helicopter to a nearby pediatric hospital before being transferred to a hospital in Portland, Maine. (Jesse Morgan via New Creation Living Blog)

Jesse, a pastor at Green Pond Bible Chapel in Rockaway, New Jersey, told Fox News Digital the family’s vacation was part of his sabbatical.

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“We were on our first week [of sabbatical] and it was, according to her, the best week of her life,” he said. “We did so many fun things.”

Photos shared by the family showed Lucy and her three siblings, Silas, Shiloh and Atticus, fishing and kayaking in Limerick, Maine, before tragedy struck.

“It was, according to her, the best week of her life.”

Lucy and her mother, Bethany, and sister. Jesse Morgan said he and his wife were reading and relaxing when the badminton accident happened. (Jesse Morgan via New Creation Living Blog)

The family’s idyllic vacation came to a sudden halt May 30, after the family enjoyed a leisurely lunch.

Jesse said he and his wife were reading and resting in the backyard, and the children were playing badminton, when their son came to them “very concerned.”

“We went out, and we saw what had happened, which was just indescribable terror going from so quiet, so calm to an incredibly traumatic experience,” Jesse said.

Four days later, Lucy died from her injuries, the family said. (Jesse Morgan via New Creation Living Blog)

Lucy was unexpectedly struck when the shaft of the racket, which was being used by her 10-year-old brother, broke apart and flew into her skull.

“Due to a freak accident with a racquet that broke on a downward swing, a sharp piece had entered Lucy’s skull while she was sitting on the sideline and caused catastrophic injury,” Jesse explained in a series of blog posts on his blog, New Creation Living. “She was still breathing but unresponsive as I held her with Bethany crying out to God.”

AMERICAN MISSIONARIES KILLED BY HAITIAN GANG ‘GAVE EVERYTHING’ FOR PEOPLE THERE: FAMILY

Lucy was taken to a local hospital before being moved to a hospital in Portland, Maine.

Lucy had a prayer journal that she wrote and drew in. (Jesse Morgan via New Creation Living Blog)

Four days after the accident, Lucy succumbed to her injury.

“After significant thorough testing and even more repeated tests to be certain, brain death was declared at 1:32 a.m. on June 5, and her heart stopped beating around 4 a.m.,” Jesse wrote.

“Lucy was with Jesus.”

The parents held onto the hope that Lucy “believed in Jesus’ death and resurrection.”

“Lucy was with Jesus.”

SOUTH CAROLINA WOMAN’S HAND AMPUTATED AFTER BURNING IT IN FREAK ACCIDENT WITH HAIR DRYER

“Four weeks ago she asked Bethany how to be with God and be saved,” Jesse wrote. “Bethany explained it to her and offered to pray with her, but ‘Miss Independent’ wanted to do it herself. She went to her room and prayed to God to forgive her and that she believed in Jesus’ death and resurrection.”

“What a gift,” he said.

Lucy Morgan wrote in her prayer journal that “God loves me.” (Jesse Morgan via New Creation Living Blog)

Lucy’s prayer journal also contained drawings of the family and the Bible, her father said. (Jesse Morgan via New Creation Living Blog)

Jesse wrote that he and his wife were comforted after finding her prayer journal, saying it felt “as if God was writing with her.”

“How a 6-year-old journals like this is beyond me. After that, she seemed to get writer’s block and just draw beautiful pictures of Bible stories and hearts.”

Sarah Rumpf-Whitten is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business.

She is a native of Massachusetts and is based in Orlando, Florida.

Story tips and ideas can be sent to sarah.rumpf@fox.com and on X: @s_rumpfwhitten.

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New York

This Memorial Day Starts a Summer That Is Longer Than Most

Published

1 hour ago

May 25, 2026

Press Room

This Memorial Day Starts a Summer That Is Longer Than Most

There will be more ice cream in 2026. More bare feet and blowing dandelions. More iced tea and Frisbees and sandals. More mosquitoes and mowing? No, please, not that, for goodness’ sake, replace it with more hammock naps and fireflies caught after sunset.

Summer is kind of, sort of, just maybe actually going to be longer this year.

Unofficially the summer begins on Memorial Day, when we break out the white clothing, and ends on Labor Day, when we pack it away again. In between: ball games, sand in your shoes, Dad insisting he knows how to light the grill and Mom chasing you down to apply another coat of sunblock.

And Memorial Day falls on the earliest possible day this year: May 25. And Labor Day is on the latest possible day: Sept. 7. It’s a SuperSummer! A Summerganza! A Summerpalooza! (You can do better than us, reader, we know you can.)

Of course, none of this is official. People in the Northeast last week felt like it was already summer as the temperature surged into the 90s (then they had to contend with an unseasonably cool Memorial Day weekend).

The season officially starts this year, astronomically speaking, with the summer solstice on June 21, and ends with the fall equinox on Sept. 22.

That is hardly how we live it.

June 21? We’re already sunburned by then. September 22? We’re mired in geometry tests and the local corn maze. (I swear the exit was somewhere around here.)

But Memorial Day has become the checkpoint to the days of summer.

The act of Congress that established this remembrance of fallen armed service members says that the federal holiday falls on the final Monday of May. This year, because the month begins on a Friday, that’s the startlingly early date of May 25. And when that happens, Labor Day, the first Monday of September, lingers all the way to Sept. 7.

The Long, Hot Summer? Definitely. 500 Days of Summer? This year it’s 106, up from a paltry 99 in 2025. The Endless Summer? We can dream.

This has happened before, most recently in 2020, a year we had other things on our minds beside sand castles.

The frequency of the stretched out summer is complicated. Calendars, like a melting rainbow snow cone, are not neat and pretty. We will have to wait 11 years, until 2037, for the next MegaSummer. The cycle continues, with the next longer summer six years later, then in five years, then six years, then 11 again. Then repeat.

But even in the midst of summer’s joy, the cool nip of fall and the responsibilities it brings are never too far away. Children and their parents will never quite be able to forget the start of the school year, another unofficial moment that feels like season’s end.

With such a stretched-out summer, will kids get to avoid “creeping like snail / unwillingly to school” a little longer this year? And by extension, will parents have to turn over more pages of the calendar before the sweet return of the school bell?

The start of the school year varies around the country. The late Labor Day will feel like true break after weeks of school in some jurisdictions. Then there is New York City, where schools open a bit later, in part because of union contracts. This year, that will be the staggeringly late date of Sept. 10, six days later than 2025.

Boston, MA

The 2026 Boston Red Sox are a chore to watch

Published

2 hours ago

May 25, 2026

Press Room

The 2026 Boston Red Sox are a chore to watch

What do you even want me to say at this point, respectfully?

Before I get on my soap box and complain for however-many words, let me just quickly say that I appreciate the fact that you’re here. It’s a holiday Monday, you could’ve done anything else with your long weekend, and yet you decided to read the upset ramblings of a man who is really pissed off with his shitty baseball team. For that, I thank you. Isn’t that the American Dream, what I’m living out right now?

Tongue-in-cheek comments aside: I’m exhausted, folks. Not with the writing—I’ll be here on OTM until the bitter end—but with the watching. Forgive me for the stream of consciousness this week, but I don’t know what else to do.

The 2026 Boston Red Sox are a chore to watch. I don’t really remember the last time I’ve ever felt that way in my life. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt that way, actually, now that I think about it. I was in high school in 2012; I still had that youthful spunk where I wanted to watch my team. I was still probably riding enough of a high after 2013 to ensure that the following two season weren’t a monotonous watch. Even the non-‘21-and-‘25 teams in the 2020’s weren’t this miserable to sit through at this point in the season, at least for me (your mileage may vary).

After a sweep at the hands of the Minnesota Twins, the Sox are dangerously close to being 10 games under .500, as if avoiding that label would be any fucking consolation prize for a team that was getting AL pennant shouts two months ago (and I’m guilty of that too! I had Seattle winning the pennant over us! Not that the Seattle prediction is going well, but my goodness!). This team is a joke. They are, simply put, pathetic. I’m not sure how in depth I can go with that as my basis right now.

Perhaps this is just my own personal reckoning with the situation, but doesn’t this feel like the right time for it? The unofficial date to begin worrying about your team has always been Memorial Day. We’re there now, and I think the season’s just about over already. There’s no generational prospect coming up through the minors to help us. The coaching staff has already been cleaned out. The money is being allocated by FSG in some capacity, for all the ownership group’s faults, yet here we are. The roster construction is still a mess and it will continue to be a mess for the immediate future.

To quote a wise sheriff…

If there’s a way out of this mess, I can’t personally see it. I try to be as optimistic as possible, but I do not see a path to 270 electoral votes this year. I’d love to eat these words in a few months, but I don’t believe in this group. I’ve seen enough. I’ll keep watching because I’m a sicko. I’ll keep writing about this team because I love writing and I love the Red Sox and I love this lil’ gig I’ve been blessed with getting. But I sure as hell do not love this iteration of the team, man. We’ll have plenty of time to talk about what needs to happen to right the ship (I don’t want to be rash, but I’m becoming more and more of a #BreslowOut guy as the days go on, slowly but surely), but as for right now: I think the prospects we had in late March about this team contending in October are just about done and dusted.

If you’re a consistent reader, you know that I like to dive into the developments that have happened over the course of the week in the MMBB, whether they’re good or bad. That practice will continue for the rest of the season. I’ll try to be as optimistic as possible moving forward in 2026, but just know that I’m probably harboring a sense of dread alongside any positive words I have until I’m given a reason by the team to feel otherwise. Why waste my time by thinking things could be getting better this season when I’m talking about any consistent trends that Jarren Duran might’ve had at the plate this week? The last time I did that, he sucked for another week-and-change. I did the same with Marcelo Mayer before then, and it’s been even worse for him. I could talk until I’m blue in the face about the positive trends being made by a Payton Tolle or a Sonny Gray or a, dare I say, Brayan Bello when he’s being preceded by an opener.

Doesn’t matter, dude. We suck shit.

All of those positive trends could be true in a vacuum, but I don’t think they’re gonna ultimately matter this year—short of something extraordinary happening. The pitching’s been pretty solid overall, the defense has been stellar, and I’ve tried finding the positives in an underwhelming lineup. All of that together has gotten us eight games below an even .500. We’re a laughing stock in the league; a banter club, if you follow the Premier League. We’ve got Buster Olney saying we’ve got to abort the Caleb Durbin experiment. The question of “What the fuck are we doing in the front office” is a legitimate one at this stage. To get even more existential, another great question is “What is the plan moving forward?”

We’ve got nothing going for us on a consistent basis. Even after a sweep in Kansas City, the team goes and shits their pants yet again at home. The only time I’ve ever given true credence to the idea of momentum not being a thing has been with watching this collection of guys representing the Red Sox, because I haven’t seen an ounce of it this year. What is there to look forward to for the last four months of the year?

I guess I’ve gotta answer that question for myself. Maybe you do as well.

Again: I’ll be here for y’all. I’ll talk about positive and negative trends as I see ‘em, because I like talking ball. I love this team, I love this sport, and I love talking about both the team as well as the sport.

But I suppose this is my official declaration that I’m not gonna be fooled by this specific group going forward. I’ve been patient enough thus far; the patience is gone. I’m not holding any reservations for them for the rest of the year, because they don’t deserve those reservations. We’ve crossed the Rubicon, if the Rubicon was filled with poo. Maybe we’re drowning in that Rubicon instead, come to think of it. Either way: I don’t see a way where we could be going back.

I’ll still watch, I’ll still write, I’ll still support, but I don’t believe in this group as things currently stand. I’d love to be proven wrong, but I don’t think I’m alone in this sentiment. What have they done to prove otherwise? I’ve tried putting a spotlight on positive things (and I’m not trying to sound like the end-all-be-all of Sox analysis here, folks; this is just my personal ramblings) and they haven’t amounted to much of anything. I don’t care how bad the American League is. We’re a prime example of that suckiness. How many times can the boy cry wolf? How many times can the Sox blogger cry positive regression?

I dunno, folks. I’m just exhausted with this team already. I think it’ll be a………………………………………..