Matthew Broderick's car accident took place on August 5, 1987 as he was driving near Enniskillen, County Fermanagh during a vacation with then-girlfriend Jennifer Grey.
FacebookMatthew Broderick and Jennifer Grey upon their return to the United States following Broderick’s car accident in Ireland.
In 1987, actors Matthew Broderick and Jennifer Grey were reaching new heights in their careers. The then-couple had just starred in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Grey was about to become America’s sweetheart thanks to her upcoming movie Dirty Dancing. But Matthew Broderick’s car accident in Northern Ireland that summer nearly changed everything.
In August 1987, the couple was driving in Northern Ireland when Broderick suddenly and inexplicably swerved into oncoming traffic. Two people were killed, and Broderick and Grey were both injured. Grey has since called it one of the top traumas of her life, and Broderick has admitted to struggling with coming to grips with what happened.
But the family of the two women killed in the other car long believed that Broderick got off with a slap on the wrist.
Inside The Matthew Broderick Car Accident
MediaPunch Inc / Alamy Stock PhotoMatthew Broderick and Jennifer Grey in 1981, six years before Matthew Broderick’s car accident.
Matthew Broderick’s car accident took place on August 5, 1987. Broderick and Grey were driving a rented BMW in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, around 3 p.m. on a sunny afternoon, when the 25-year-old actor suddenly swerved into oncoming traffic.
Neither Grey nor Broderick can recall exactly what happened, or why Broderick drove the car into the opposite lane. He may have been disoriented by a sudden rain squall, or the actor might have gotten confused about driving on the left side of the road. According to the Irish Independent, Grey had leaned down to put a music tape in the cassette player under the dashboard. Broderick, for his part, has no memory of the car accident at all.
“I don’t remember even getting up in the morning. I don’t remember making my bed,” Broderick told the New York Post in 2002. “What I first remember is waking up in the hospital, with a very strange feeling going on in my leg.”
Broderick didn’t remember it, but he had smashed his BMW straight into an approaching Volvo, killing 28-year-old Anna Gallagher, and her mother, 63-year-old Margaret Doherty.
The Immediate Aftermath Of The Matthew Broderick Car Accident
Find A GraveAnna Gallagher and Margaret Doherty, the two victims of the Matthew Broderick car accident.
As she emerged from the wreckage of Matthew Broderick’s car crash, Jennifer Grey thought that Broderick had been killed too. She was relatively uninjured, but emerged from the wreck covered in Broderick’s blood.
“I thought he was dead,” she told Entertainment Tonight in 2022. “I didn’t even know there were two other women who were tragically killed at the time.”
In another interview, Grey recalled: “One minute we’re going down the road and music is playing, and the next minute … it’s all different. Being alone on a country road in the middle of nowhere with nobody else around or conscious was pretty terrifying…”
But Broderick — though he had no memory of the event — seemed to have realized that he’d hit another vehicle. According to fire brigade member Ken Ramsey, who responded to the scene, Broderick immediately expressed concern for the people in the other car.
“We had to cut the side away from the American’s car to give him first aid,” Ramsey told PEOPLE a few weeks after the car crash. “[Broderick’s] main concern was for the people in the other car. He kept saying ‘Did I hurt them? Did I hurt them?'”
Broderick suffered from a concussion, broken ribs, a broken leg, and a collapsed lung following the accident. He was in the hospital for four weeks. Grey, though she escaped from the collision without serious injuries, developed chronic pain from the accident, as the force of the collision had ripped the ligaments in her back off of her neck. The resulting injury would cause Grey multi-day headaches that sometimes made it difficult for her to open her eyes. She would eventually get spinal surgery in order to prevent further spinal damage and paralysis.
But the Matthew Broderick car accident would have a lasting impact beyond their physical injuries.
A ‘Travesty Of Justice’
Wikimedia CommonsMatthew Broderick was not charged with manslaughter in the wake of the incident.
After Matthew Broderick’s car crash, the actor was charged with “careless driving” and fined $175. This was a far less serious charge than “dangerous driving,” which could have sent him to jail for five years. And to the family of Gallagher and Doherty, it amounted to a “travesty of justice.”
“Of course, you wonder if he got off lightly because of who he was,” Martin Doherty, who lost his mother and sister in the crash, remarked according to the Belfast Telegraph. “He got the same punishment he would have got if he’d run over cattle.”.
Broderick did write a note to the Doherty family in the days following the crash, expressing his remorse. But according to Doherty there had been no other contact. That said, Martin Doherty did publicly forgive Broderick in 2002.
“He didn’t kill my mother and sister deliberately,” Doherty told the New York Post. “There were strong feelings at the time, but I have since forgiven him and feel no anger toward him.”
The New York Post also reported Broderick was going to meet with the Doherty family as a form of closure. However, it is unclear if that meeting ever took place.
How The Two Actors Moved On From Matthew Broderick’s Car Crash
For his part, Matthew Broderick struggled in the years following his car accident in Ireland. It took time, and professional help, but he was able to accept what had happened.
“It was extremely difficult coming to grips with what happened, but in time I felt better about that terrible experience,” Broderick later explained, adding: “Therapy helped.”
Broderick and Grey, however, would break up the following year after the accident in 1988. Neither of the couple would speak about the incident often in the press.
Jeffrey MayerJennifer Grey in February 2025.
However, in 2022 Grey revealed that the crash was one of the “top three traumas of my life, maybe top one.” But she has accepted that it was ultimately a terrible and tragic accident.
“I wasn’t holding any information that people seem to think I did because they wanted an answer and there was no answer because it was an accident,” Grey stated. “And [Broderick] was a great driver, and nobody was drinking. It was just an accident. And it was tragic, and I think about the family in Ireland all the time.”
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