Natalie Grant Recalls Daughter Gracie’s Near-Fatal Asthma Attack: 'That Moment Changed Everything' (Exclusive)

It was Christmas Eve 2015, and contemporary Christian singer Natalie Grant, along with her husband and three young daughters—and dozens of extended family members—gathered at her brother’s house in Seattle for a holiday celebration. In the middle of the celebration, Natalie’s daughter Gracie, then 8, mentioned that it hurt to breathe. She was diagnosed with asthma a few months ago, but Natalie thought she was generally fine.

“Now, looking back,” says the nine-time Grammy nominee, “I see how she had this brave face. She just didn’t want to miss Christmas Eve.”

When Gracie’s symptoms persisted the next day, Natalie’s brother Steve, a doctor, and her niece Jenna, a nurse, recommended she be taken to the emergency room — where Gracie was given medication and sent home. “And we said, ‘Well, she’s got to be fine,'” says Natalie.

Gracie and Natalie Grant.

Diana King

Two days later, Natalie was at a Seattle Seahawks hockey game with her husband, Grammy-winning producer Bernie Herms, when she received a text from her niece: “I’m taking Gracie to Seattle Children’s Hospital. Her breathing is very bad.”

At the hospital “I remember about eight doctors rushing in,” says Natalie, 52, “and I thought, ‘What’s going on?!’ ” Gracie was diagnosed with pneumonia and a partially collapsed lung – both of which triggered a severe asthma attack.

On a severity scale of 1 to 10, doctors rated Gracie an 11, in large part because her oxygen levels had dropped to an alarming 88 percent (normal levels range from 95 to 100 percent). When high doses of steroids failed to stabilize her breathing, Gracie was placed in intensive care, where she remained for the next five days.

“They just couldn’t get her breathing under control,” says Natalie.

Natalie Grant with daughter Gracie in intensive care.

Courtesy of Natalie Grant and Gracie Herms

Within two weeks, Gracie made a full recovery – and now, at 17, she’s a successful high school student. But the traumatic experience was life-changing for both the teenager and her parents, who didn’t realize how deadly asthma can be if not properly treated.

“That moment changed everything,” says Natalie, sitting with Gracie in the study of their Nashville home. “You feel like a complete failure as a parent. I can’t stress this enough: make an effort to really learn about asthma and how to get it under control right from the start. Don’t wait until you have a crisis.”

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An estimated 25 million Americans suffer from asthma, of which 6.5 percent are children. Chronic respiratory disease causes inflammation in the lungs, leading to narrowing of the small airways — and symptoms ranging from coughing and wheezing to shortness of breath and chest tightness. Common triggers include stress, food allergies, pet dander, cold weather, and various environmental irritants such as pollen, among others. Although there is no cure for asthma, new treatments and medications have made the disease much easier to control.

“In younger people, most asthma is allergic asthma,” says Dr. Brian Christman, professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. “But these days our treatments have gotten so much better that we can get people under pretty good control.”

Gracie and Natalie Grant.

Diana King

That was the case for Gracie, who diligently takes her allergy medication daily and uses a rescue inhaler at the first sign of an attack.

“I still have weak lungs, so whenever I have allergies or get sick, I can have an attack,” she says. “But for the most part it’s super under control and I’m blessed for that. I learned to pay attention and be aware of my own body,” she adds, “because you can have consequences if you don’t.”

Her mother says: “That is well said. Our bodies are always talking to us. You just have to listen.”

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Growing up in Seattle, Natalie had a passion for music that blossomed early. The youngest of five children born to Arnold Grant, 88, a real estate photographer, and Gloria, 84, a retired buyer for Nordstrom, she was raised in a strong Christian, musical family and sang in her local church.

During her freshman year of college, she auditioned for a contemporary Christian touring band called Truth, and then spent two years performing at various universities across the country.

“That’s when I really said, ‘This is what I’m meant to do,'” says Natalie, who was 26 when she moved to Nashville. In 1997, she signed to Benson Records, and in 1999, she released her first solo album, Natalie Grant. “I’ve been super blessed to be doing what I love,” she says. “But it wasn’t easy. It took a long time before everything worked out.”

In the same year, she married Bernie, whom she met in 1997 when she hired him to accompany her on the piano during a presentation for her record label. “Writing songs and making music with the person I feel most safe with brings out the best in me,” says Natalie of Bernie, now 52, ​​who has worked with Barbra Streisand, Josh Groban and Selena Gomez, to name a few.

Natalie Grant is performing in Nashville in 2020.

“We always say that he is the star of the family,” he adds with a smile.

Gracie and her twin sister Isabella (Bella) were born in February 2007. (Daughter Sadie, now 13, arrived three years later.)

“Being a mom is the most rewarding thing in the world. There’s nothing better,” says Natalie, who at the time released her acclaimed fourth album, Awaken, and won the first of four Dove Awards for Female Vocalist from the Gospel Music Association. By age 3, Gracie was taking dance lessons and was an active, healthy child.

“She never struggled with allergies. She was always so strong,” says Natalie. “Asthma literally came out of nowhere.”

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No one in Natalie’s immediate family had ever been diagnosed with asthma, so the singer-songwriter wasn’t looking for telltale symptoms when she picked up Gracie from a friend’s birthday party in August 2015. “It was a hot, humid day in Nashville, with lots of allergens—and Gracie said , ‘It hurts to breathe,'” recalls Natalie, who assumed her daughter was just out of breath from the heat and playing with her friends. But a few hours later, after noticing that Gracie’s lips had turned blue and her skin was “kind of grey”, a worried Natalie and Bernie took her to the emergency room – where doctors diagnosed Gracie with asthma. They treated her with steroids, then gave her an inhaler and a nebulizer and sent her home. “And she was fine,” says Natalie.

“But we just didn’t know enough about it. We didn’t educate ourselves. And so we ended up in such a serious place in intensive care for several days.”

Natalie and Gracie Grant in Washington, DC

Courtesy of Natalie Grant and Gracie Herms

Now, looking back, Natalie can see the multiple warning signs and triggers that led to Gracie’s near-fatal attack that day in December 2015: her brother’s two dogs and the various scents and candles everywhere. “I remember a lot,” Gracie says of her stay in intensive care. “Mom would go downstairs and switch with dad in the car, and just for those five minutes when I was alone in that room, I thought, ‘What’s going to happen to me?’ It was really scary.”

At home, Natalie and Bernie put together a strict plan to monitor Gracie’s condition and make sure she takes her daily allergy medication. “It was not optional; it was imperative,” says Natalie. They also began monitoring potential triggers and watching for signs of possible flare-ups. A small device called a peak flow meter helped measure Gracie’s breathing capacity; the slightest cough or wheezing meant immediate nebulizer treatment. (“We went through so many of those sprinklers,” Natalie says.) When Gracie went to a friend’s house for a sleepover and they had a dog, “we’d go get her so she could sleep at home,” Natalie recalls. “When she went to summer camp, we made sure everyone was hyper-aware of her asthma, especially if it was going to be humid or hot that day.” Equally important was teaching Gracie to be her own best advocate—“teaching her how to speak up,” says Natalie.

Gracie Grant is taking a dance class in Tennessee in May 2024.

Histown Dance

It’s a lesson Gracie has taken to heart—and as a result, she’s grown into a healthy, active teenager. Her childhood asthma attack sparked plans to study medicine and she hopes to one day become a doctor or nurse. “My whole journey has motivated me to want to help other people,” says Gracie, who is also an avid hip-hop dancer. “I love it very much. Sometimes on days when I’m dancing non-stop, I take my inhaler with me, but I haven’t really struggled with it.” With Gracie and Bella just over a year away from graduation, Natalie is scaling back her touring schedule for a while. (She performed about 130 shows across the country last year.)

“These are important years and I don’t want to be so far away from them,” says Natalie, who is also a long-time global ambassador for Hope for Justice, a charity that has helped more than 200,000 survivors of human trafficking. “I learned that there is no such thing as balancing or managing everything,” she adds. “When my husband and I decided to have children, we agreed that family would be our priority. And everything else kind of comes after that.”

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Source: HIS Education