Father of 6-year-old New Jersey girl killed in freak badminton accident shares touching memories of his daughter

US News

By Chris Nesi

The heartbroken father of a 6-year-old New Jersey girl who died in a freak accident while playing badminton has shared touching new memories of his “bubbly” and strong-willed daughter.

“Her personality was very bubbly and sometimes reserved,” Jesse Morgan, pastor of Green Pond Bible Chapel in Rockaway, New Jersey, said of his tragic daughter Lucy.

“Once you got to know her, she was very, very frank and very funny. “She was a tough kid and she played soccer really hard,” he told Fox News Digital in an interview published Sunday.

He recalled Lucy’s penchant for affection, calling her the “prime cuddler” of the family of six.

“I just remember that she invented her headboard [hair] and I just want to stay with you for a long time. Not agitated, I just want to lay down with you and snuggle,” the grieving father told the media outlet.

The tragedy occurred on June 1, the last day of an otherwise picturesque family lakeside vacation in Limerick, Maine.

A badminton racket broke while little Lucy was playing with her three siblings in the front yard of the family’s rental cottage, and a piece of metal pierced the little girl’s skull.

Emergency responders rushed her to a local hospital, which then airlifted the child, who was still breathing but unresponsive, to Maine Medical Center in Portland, according to Maine State Police.

She was taken straight to the operating room, where surgeons removed part of her skull to relieve pressure, when Lucy crashed onto the table.

Although doctors were able to resuscitate the child, she had lost all her brain functions and all her ability to breathe on her own.

Lucy succumbed to her injuries around 4 a.m. Wednesday, a day longer than she was expected to survive.

Returning home from this life-changing trip, Jesse remembers looking at photos of Lucy with his wife Bethany and their other daughter.

“My wife just said her beauty is haunting. Some of these photos are just, she’s so gorgeous and her personality is so amazing,” he said.

He described the family vacation until the accident – ​​which occurred in the first week of his sabbatical – as “the best week of his life”.

Photos from the vacation that Jesse shared on his blog show the bright smiles of Lucy and her siblings as the family climbed trees, hiked in the woods and took naps on a hammock by the lake.

“We did so many fun things,” he recalls.