'My heart sank' Bode Miller's wife Morgan breaks down as she recalls tragic death of daughter Emmy

Morgan Miller

Bode Miller's wife Morgan has broken down in tears while she recalled the day when she tragically lost her daughter Emmy.

The couple, who are expecting another child in a few months, have given their first interview since the terrible loss of her daughter, who sadly drowned in their neighbours' pool.

Describing the day when it happened, the mum told the Today show: 'It was a normal day. Every morning, the kids would go swimming and Bode would go swimming with them, and they'd be in there for hours. And they loved it.

Adding that Emmy used to always use a floaty to go in the pool, she said: 'She loved the water. She had zero fear of the water.'

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Morgan and Emmy spent that afternoon visiting friends and grandparents, and returned home before Bode left the house with their eldest daughter.

'He was loading up the car when we got back and I gave him a kiss. And out of nowhere, she (Emmy) leaned over and gave him another kiss. And we were so amused by her reaction because it was not typical of Emmy', Morgan recalled.

'So I kissed him again and she did it again and we laughed. Then I turned around and I walked inside and she waved and said bye to her Dad.'

After the sweet moment, Morgan went over to neighbours' house with her kids: 'We go over, back and forth, multiple times a week. They're family to us. And it was just a normal day over there. We sat on the sofa and she played in front of us.'

'And Emmy would go back and forth, which was all of 15 feet. And all of the sudden, it was just too quiet for me.

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'We're in mid-conversation and I stood up. And I turned and I went right to where the boys were and I said "Where's Emmy?"'

'Before Nate could respond, I turned around and the door that leads to the back yard, that was closed, had this tiny sliver of light coming through the side. And my heart sank and I opened the door and she was floating in the pool. And I ran and I jumped in.'

Morgan did CPR to her daughter and doctors said she might survive when they got to the hospital. The outlook soon changed when they said she was deprived of oxygen for too long.

Now the parents are trying to raise awareness of drowning, which is the number one cause of unintentional death in children ages one to four in the US.

'There's not a day that goes by that I don't pray for the opportunity to go back to that day and make it different. But now we have this opportunity to make other parents' days different.

'We have the choice to live our days with purpose, to make sure that no other parent has to feel what we're feeling.

'Guilt is a very painful thing. And even though it's awful and living with it is terrible, and I hope and pray and beg that it gets easier, I am now much more aware in that area to make sure it doesn't ever happen again.'

Mariana Cerqueira
Lifestyle Editor

Mariana is a lifestyle writer who has written for Goodto.com and My Imperfect Life. She joined the Goodto.com team as an intern after completing her journalism MA at City University. After six months spent writing about food, celebrity news, and family trends, Mariana left to write for Healthy Food magazine - but returned in 2017, to join the Future team once again. In her spare time, you’ll find Mariana in the kitchen cooking for her friends.