Pasco man, 20, dies of heart attack during church mission in Mexico

A 20-year-old Pasco man on a church mission in Mexico died unexpectedly Friday night while playing soccer with community members.

An autopsy showed Nathan Castle McBride had a heart attack, according to his father, Robert McBride.

After a break in the game, Nathan McBride was running to get the ball when he fell down and never got back up. His father said the other players performed CPR and paramedics tried to resuscitate him, but he was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Nathan McBride was a 2013 graduate of Chiawana High School and Columbia Basin College through the Running Start program.

A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he had just started the second year of his two-year mission in Mérida, the capital of the Mexican state of Yucatán.

Robert McBride said he and his wife, Rhonda, were shocked when a church official delivered the news to their Pasco home late Friday because his son was healthy and didn’t have any medical conditions. They were told that there was no sign of damage or harm to Nathan’s body.

“Nathan was serving the Lord as a missionary and he was doing what he was supposed to be doing,” Robert McBride said. “And he was happy, he was very happy. He loved what he was doing.”

Robert McBride said he was told the soccer game was a fellowship activity involving church members and “investigators,” or people who are looking into joining the Mormon church.

Nathan McBride was an “active kid’ who enjoyed hiking, going on fishing trips and climbing Mount Adams with his local Boy Scouts troop. He loved sports, whether it was playing basketball with friends or excelling as a pole vaulter in high school.

His parents described their son as a quiet leader, well disciplined, very driven and a perfectionist who once had considered retaking a CBC math class because his grade fell below his usual A’s.

McBride had more than a 3.8 grade-point average when he got his associate degree from CBC, which was going to help him get into Brigham Young University as a transfer student after his mission, his parents said. He wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon, though his parents said he had a real passion for animals.

McBride had been a volunteer at Benton-Franklin Humane Society. He also spent time growing up on the family farms with his grandparents and mother’s siblings, had learned how to raise and show pigs, and his senior year bought some sows and later sold them to finance his church mission, his father said.

The highlight of McBride’s year was the Benton Franklin Fair & Rodeo. He once won Reserve Grand Champion for 4-H Intermediate Showmanship, according to Herald archives.

“He literally, on the way home from the fair, would say, ‘I can’t wait for the fair next year,’” Robert McBride said. “That’s why we were somewhat skeptical of the plan that he was going to be a surgeon, because he loved animals and was a good trainer.”

Missionaries can call and talk to loved ones twice a year. Robert McBride said the family, including Nathan’s grandparents, were able to Skype with him on Christmas day.

“It was fantastic. It was awesome to see him,” the father said. “He was doing good and working hard. They were having lots of success working with good families.”

Nathan McBride was so immersed in the Spanish-speaking culture for the past year that he had a little trouble with his English when talking to his family, his father said. His 18-year-old sister, Bethany, noted he had a little bit of an accent while 23-year-old brother, Devin, who’s fluent in Spanish after a mission in Argentina, was able to easily communicate with his sibling, the father said.

In addition to his parents and siblings, Nathan McBride is survived by grandparents Elaine and Bob McBride of Benton City and Fern and Alvin Harris of Pasco, and many aunts, uncles and cousins.

Robert McBride said the family is working with the American Consulate to get his son’s body home. They are hoping to have the funeral Jan. 24, but don’t yet know if that will be enough time.

Mueller’s Greenlee Funeral Home of Pasco is handling arrangements.

This story was originally published January 19, 2015 at 10:42 PM with the headline "Pasco man, 20, dies of heart attack during church mission in Mexico."