She was the girl who never met a dog she didn’t try to adopt, who hosted weekly Dungeons & Dragons sessions in her tiny Chicago studio, and could beat anyone at Catan while making self-deprecating jokes in the same breath. Bethany MaGee, 26, loved cozy cardigans, pumpkin-spice everything, and live-streaming chill board-game nights with her online friends. Her Discord icon was a cartoon corgi wearing wizard robes. Her Steam library had over 400 titles. Strangers on the internet called her “the human equivalent of a weighted blanket.”
On November 17, 2025, all of that was almost erased in nine seconds of gasoline and flame.
For eight days her family stayed silent, shielding her identity while she fought for her life in the Stroger Hospital burn unit. The world only knew her as “the 26-year-old female victim on the Blue Line.” Blurry platform videos showed a burning figure collapsing while strangers beat at the flames with winter coats. The internet filled the void with rumors and fear.
Then, on November 25, the MaGee family decided the world needed to see the real Bethany, not just the silhouette on fire.
They posted a single photograph to the GoFundMe they titled “Help Bethany Heal”: Bethany at a backyard barbecue last summer, sun-kissed freckles, arms wrapped around a friend’s golden retriever, laughing so hard her eyes are squeezed shut. Underneath, her mother Emily wrote the words that instantly went viral:
“This is our Bethany. She is kind, funny, and ridiculously smart. She cries at dog-food commercials and always lets you win the first round of Catan so you’ll keep playing. She was just riding the train home from work when a man with 72 prior arrests decided to set her on fire. Sixty percent of her body is burned. She has a long, painful road ahead. But she is still our Bethany, and she is still fighting.”
Within hours the fundraiser rocketed past $800,000. The photo was shared half a million times. Strangers who had never met her started posting their own board-game nights with the caption “Playing for Bethany tonight.” Pet rescues in Chicago announced they were naming their next litter of puppies after her favorite games Bethany loved. One animal shelter even renamed their quietest, sweetest rescue dog “Bethany’s Wizard Corgi.”
Her brothers, Mark and John, both in their early thirties, gave their first interview to a local podcast the next day. They spoke from the hospital parking lot because they refused to leave her side longer than it took to grab coffee.
“She’s the baby of the family,” Mark said, voice cracking. “She still calls me when she can’t beat a boss in Elden Ring. She has this ridiculous laugh that sounds like a hiccup. When we were kids she used to hide under the table during thunderstorms and make us play Monopoly until the power came back on. That’s who this monster tried to burn out of existence.”
John added the detail that broke the internet all over again: “The night it happened she had just texted our group chat a picture of a new card game she’d bought. The message said ‘Can’t wait to lose spectacularly to you losers this weekend.’ That was 8:57 p.m. Twenty-seven minutes later she was on fire.”
The family revealed small, devastating glimpses of the new reality inside Room 412 of the burn ICU:
Bethany is conscious now, but heavily sedated. When the pain medication wears off she cries silently because screaming would tear the grafts.
She can’t open her eyes yet; the swelling is too severe.
The first thing she wrote on the communication board when she was strong enough was “Tell my Discord I’m sorry I missed game night.”
She keeps trying to ask about her cat, Pickles, who is currently being spoiled rotten by her upstairs neighbor.
They also shared the raw truth about what comes next: years of surgeries, possible amputations of fingertips, skin expanders, compression garments she’ll wear for the rest of her life, PTSD that may never fully lift. The GoFundMe money will help, but nothing will give her back the face she used to make silly selfies with, or the carefree Tuesday nights when riding the train home felt safe.
Lawrence Reed, the man who turned their gentle gamer girl into a human torch, remains in federal custody on domestic-terrorism charges. His seventy-two prior arrests have become a national scandal. His ankle monitor’s curfew violations (ignored for hours) have sparked congressional hearings. But none of that matters to the MaGees right now.
They just want their little sister back.
On Thanksgiving Day, while most of America carved turkey, the MaGee family sat in plastic-wrapped around Bethany’s bed and played a silent round of Uno using a whiteboard because she can’t hold cards yet. Mark posted a single photo: four hands (three in normal skin, one wrapped in white gauze) holding colorful cards. Caption: “She still kicked our asses.”
The internet lost it all over again. #BethanyStrong trended worldwide. Board-game cafés from Seattle to Miami held charity tournaments in her name. Steam offered to donate a portion of holiday sales to her fund. Even Critical Role’s Matthew Mercer posted a tribute on X: “Rolling with advantage tonight for Bethany. May her saves be legendary.”
From gamer girl to human torch in seconds. From cozy Discord voice chats to burn-unit silence.
But the MaGees say the same thing every night when they leave the hospital:
“She’s still in there. The girl who laughs like a hiccup. The girl who always lets you win the first round. The girl who just wanted to get home and play games with her friends.”
And as long as that girl is still fighting, wrapped in bandages but rolling critical hits against impossible odds, the rest of us will keep playing for her.
Because some heroes don’t wear capes. They wear compression sleeves and wizard-corgi avatars, and they refuse to let the fire win.
