McBride family continues recovery two years post accident

On October 5, 2024, the McBride family faced tremendous devastation when a car accident took the life of eldest daughter, Grace, and critically injured her brother, Brendan. At the time, the two were 19 and 15 years old, respectively.

Those who knew Grace McBride knew her to be a kind young woman, oriented towards empathy and a deep desire to help others. At the time of the accident, Grace had been pursuing psychology at Indiana University Northwest, hoping to become a therapist. She had planned on transferring to IU Bloomington to continue her studies.

Jenn McBride, Grace and Brendan’s mother, shared more about her daughter.

“She was super smart, and she did everything really well. She liked going to school,” she said. “Everybody described her as being an old soul. She would go thrifting at thrift stores and liked to hang out with her friends. She never got in trouble. She always wanted to please everyone.”

From the wreck, Brendan McBride and his girlfriend at the time were transported to Chicago in critical condition.

“I don’t think I really had any idea what I was in for. It was all shock and trauma,” Jenn McBride said. “I went up to the hospital thinking he had some broken legs, but then they were telling us he had this traumatic brain injury. I didn’t know what that meant, really. It wasn’t until a couple days after that when we found out how serious it was.”

Doctors informed the McBride family that Brendan had suffered a level 3 diffuse axonal injury, putting his condition at the most severe level of traumatic brain injury.

With this information, the McBride family had to navigate not just the loss of Grace, but an uncertain future for Brendan.

“The doctor at the time told me, ‘I don’t know if your son’s going to be able to come home and live with you,’” Jenn McBride said. “I was at bat, thinking ‘What is this? What’s going to happen? What’s this going to look like?’ I didn’t really think of it any more than that. I saw it as he was going to get better, and we were going to do whatever we had to do.”

The months after the accident marked an extremely vulnerable period for the McBride family. Jenn McBride and her husband, Tim, split the care of their children, watching their daughters and staying at the hospital with Brendan, respectively. As responsibilities and circumstances shifted for the family, a wide net of community support formed to help fill the gaps.

Friends, family, and even strangers across Crown Point stepped in to help support the McBride family.

“The whole community came together and helped us get through it,” Jenn McBride said. “I don’t think I realized how many people were affected by the accident like we were, and I was shocked that there were that many people that wanted to help us and be there for us.”

In all, the community raised nearly $90k for the family through GoFundMe, hoping to alleviate the expenses faced by the family following the accident.

“We really want everybody to know that we really appreciate their support,” Jenn McBride said.  “I don’t think we could have gone through it without everyone.”

As the family continued to move forward, McBride offered updates to those who had donated to their GoFundMe. The updates opened a new avenue for her to process the grief that came with the accident.

“I would post the updates, and people would tell me, ‘You’re such a great writer,’” she said.

In part, the compliments bolstered her lifelong passion for writing. Another part of her drive to write came from feeling misrepresented.

“In a way, it started off because I was kind of angry that people would constantly come up to me and say, ‘Oh, you’re the strongest person I know. I don’t know how you’re doing this,’” Jenn McBride said. “To me, they only knew that Grace died and Brendan was really hurt, but there was more to it than that.”

McBride held experiences after the accident that needed to be processed. She decided to get them off of her chest and onto the page.

“I wanted people to know I couldn’t find where they were. I found Brendan’s location on his phone and drove up to the scene of the car accident. I pulled up, and I saw her car there. They came and grabbed me, and no one told us what was going on for a long time, so I saw everything,” she said. “I wanted people to know what it meant, really, when they said that.”

Her outlet continued to expand to other parts of her grief.

“After that, it turned into ‘This is how I dealt with that, this is how I dealt with that, this is how we all got through this,’ and it ended up being very therapeutic for me,” McBride said.

With her work, McBride realized she could make a book. On October 5, she published this book, two years after the accident.

The book, titled “Grace Beyond Goodbye,” follows her story and how she learned to live with grief following the loss of not only her daughter, but her mother, just three weeks after the accident. For McBride, the book represents a desire to help those dealing with similar grief or trauma.

“I’m not the person to give any advice, everybody’s different, but if someone can take something that I said and put it towards a positive impact on their situation or something like that, then I’ll be happy,” McBride said.

In the past two years, the McBride family has worked hard towards recovery, including Brendan. Following his traumatic brain injury, Brendan remained hospitalized for a few months before being discharged. Following his release, he began to attend frequent therapy sessions, including occupational, physical, and speech therapy, as part of his rehabilitation.

Around six months past the accident, his progress in school signaled that he would be able to graduate on time. He returned to Crown Point High School in Fall 2025, beginning his junior year.

Now, Brendan is a senior in high school, looking towards graduation in 2027. He continues some weekly therapy. Those who know Brendan have noted the strength he has exhibited throughout his recovery.

“He has really pushed himself,” Jenn McBride said. “We’re all super proud of him for working so hard.”

As fall picks up this year, the McBride family hopes to keep the memory of Grace alive in what was her favorite season. This tradition grew after the discovery of a fall bucket list on her phone in 2024. The list included things like carving pumpkins, picking apples, and hay rides. The latter is now a yearly tradition with McBride’s employer, Jerry Ross Elementary School.

“The first year, they planned this hay ride bonfire for us. It’s been around every year since,” she said. “This year was our third year, and it’s so nice that people can come together and just have a hay ride and a bonfire. Everybody’s there to remember Grace.”

If you would like to read more about the McBride family and their journey, you can check out Jenn McBride’s book here.