The family of a 6-year-old New Jersey girl who died in a freak badminton accident is suing the company that made the racket that broke and killed her.
Little Lucy Morgan was playing badminton with her 10-year-old brother during an idyllic lakeside trip in Maine in June 2024 when the aluminum shaft of the racket came loose from his wooden handle, struck the girl in the head and pierced her skull.
The “bubbly” daughter of a New Jersey pastor died in the hospital four days later.
Her family filed a wrongful death lawsuit Monday against Franklin Sports, the Massachusetts-based company that made the racket, WCVB reported.
The racket, which came with a badminton set provided by the Limerick rental cottage, was defective and did not have adequate adhesive connecting the metal stem to prevent the piece from becoming a projectile, according to the lawsuit.
It accuses Franklin Sports failed to warn consumers about the dangers of the product.
The horrific death was “a parent’s worst nightmare,” according to the family’s attorney, Charles P. Hehmeyer of Berman & Simmons in Maine.
“We are committed to obtaining justice for Lucy by holding Franklin Sports accountable. We want to ensure these rackets are manufactured in a way where this type of tragedy never occurs again,” he told WCVB.
Hehmeyer said a child in New York previously lost an eye to a Franklin badminton racket, but claimed the company “chose not to correct this with something as simple as a pin in the handle, which would cost pennies.”
The lawsuit seeks damages including funeral expenses, pecuniary loss, emotional distress, loss of comfort, society and companionship, and other available damages.
The six members of the Morgan family were eating lunch and enjoying their last full day at their vacation rental when Lucy’s father, Jesse Morgan, a pastor at Green Pond Bible Chapel in Rockaway, suddenly heard a blood-curdling scream from the front yard.
“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,” shared in a heartbreaking blog entry titled “Calamity Strikes.”
Lucy was breathing, but unresponsive as EMS rushed her to a local hospital before she was airlifted to Maine Medical Center in Portland, according to Maine State Police.
Doctors were successful in reviving the young girl, but Lucy had lost all brain function and the full ability to breathe on her own. She later succumbed to her injuries.
Franklin Sports did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
