It was the kind of autumn night that makes Chicago feel almost magical — crisp air, glittering skyline, the Blue Line humming beneath the city like a steel heartbeat. Inside one of its cars, commuters swayed with the familiar rhythm of the rails, lost in screens and thoughts, certain that nothing extraordinary waited between Jackson and Clark/Lake.
But safety, routine, and normalcy shattered in a single, horrifying instant.
On November 17, 2024, 26-year-old Bethany MaGee — a gentle soul from Upland, Indiana — stepped onto the train the way she had a hundred times before. She found a seat, tucked in her earbuds, and scrolled between kittens and Bible verses, her mind drifting toward home, warmth, and rest.
She had no way of knowing that within minutes, she would be fighting for her life.
The attack began so suddenly that witnesses later struggled to put words to it. A stranger — a man reeking of gasoline — pulled a red plastic jug from his backpack and unscrewed the cap with shaking hands. Before anyone could react, accelerant splashed across the car, across seats, across Bethany. The fumes filled the air like a suffocating cloud.
He leaned in so close that Bethany could feel the heat of his breath.
“Burn alive, b***h,” he growled.
A flicker. A spark. And then — fire.
Not metaphorical fire. Not dramatic fire. Real, consuming, murderous fire that turned a train car into a furnace.
Bethany erupted into flames.
The train screeched toward Clark/Lake station as screams echoed through the car. Several passengers froze; some stumbled back, too stunned to process what their eyes were witnessing.
But one man — a construction foreman named Marcus Hale — ripped off his coat and lunged toward the inferno that Bethany had become. His jacket melted, his hands blistered, but he smothered the flames that were devouring her.
Behind him, three nurses who had just ended their shifts rushed to Bethany’s side. They knelt on the station floor, whispering prayers, stroking what remained of her hair, their calm voices forming a fragile shield against the chaos.
“You’re safe now,” one told her.
But Bethany was not safe. Not yet.
Paramedics raced her to the burn unit at Loyola University Medical Center. Sixty percent of her body — her face, neck, torso, and especially her left arm — was covered in third-degree burns. Surgeons worked through the night, grafting skin, fighting infection, stabilizing her breathing.
Doctors warned her family of the road ahead: months in the hospital, years of painful therapy, the possibility that her hand might never fully function again.
But Bethany’s family — people shaped by faith and resilience — refused to let despair overshadow hope.
Because if you knew who Bethany was before the fire, you would understand why they believed she could survive anything.
Bethany grew up in a warm, book-filled home tucked among Indiana cornfields. Her father, Dr. Gregory MaGee, is a respected Biblical scholar, the kind of professor whose lectures spill over with passion and history and hope. Her mother, Emily, is gentle, nurturing, the anchor of a home built on love and quiet strength.
Bethany absorbed all of it.
As a child, she directed backyard Nativity plays and soothed frightened shelter dogs. As a teenager, she volunteered, studied, and guided her younger brothers with wisdom far beyond her years. At Purdue University, she excelled in business analytics, her mind sharp and curious.
In 2024, she moved to Chicago for her dream job at Caterpillar Inc. — a leap of independence she embraced with excitement. On weekends, she played tabletop RPGs with friends, wove newcomers into fantasy quests, and made everyone feel seen.
“She includes everyone,” her friend Sarah said through tears. “She has this gift — she makes the world brighter by walking into it.”
That brightness made the brutality of the attack feel even more senseless.
The man who attacked her, 50-year-old Lawrence Reed, had 72 prior arrests — a history of violence stretching back decades. Prosecutors had warned that he posed a lethal threat. Judges had been cautioned. Evaluations had flagged him as dangerous.
Yet he remained free.
And on a Monday night at 9:24 p.m., he used that freedom to try to end the life of a woman who had never harmed him, never even spoken to him, never imagined that evil could sit across from her on a train.
After the attack, Reed did not flee. He watched the chaos unfold with chilling calm and was arrested moments later. Federal prosecutors now call his act terrorism — not because of ideology, but because it was an attack designed to inflict maximum fear on the public.
Bethany’s family, meanwhile, faced a new reality.
Their daughter was alive.
But everything she knew — her comfort, her independence, her body — had been violently torn from her.
In the days that followed, donations poured into a GoFundMe created by her family. Messages from Purdue alumni, Caterpillar coworkers, strangers across the country filled the page with prayers, support, and outrage.
Her father wrote words that rippled across social media:
“She is kind. She is beloved. She is strong. And with God’s help — she will heal.”
Emily stayed by Bethany’s bedside, reading Psalms aloud as machines beeped steadily beside them. Her brothers brought her books and small reminders of home — a stuffed hobbit, a Bible, a controller for the calmest game they could find.
“She’s fighting like a warrior,” one of them posted.
And she is.
A year later, Bethany’s scars tell stories only she will ever fully understand. She continues her therapy — physical, emotional, spiritual. She works part-time from home. She attends church again, her faith deeper than before. She speaks softly about the attack, but firmly about survival.
“The fire took my ease,” she told Chicago Tribune. “But not my fire.”
Chicago still rides the Blue Line. Commuters still scroll through their phones. Life moves forward, even in a city shaped by steel and stories of endurance.
But Bethany’s story lingers — a reminder that even in a place alive with promise, danger can strike without warning. A reminder of how fragile safety is. A reminder of how one person’s cruelty can change a life forever — and how other people’s kindness can save one.
Her father says, “From ashes, grace rises.”
Perhaps that’s the truest ending to this story — not the fire, not the fear, but the grace rising quietly from the rubble.
Bethany is still here.
Still fighting.
Still shining.
And that, in the end, is the part no flame could ever destroy.