The day before Bode and Morgan Miller's daughter died "was a normal day," Morgan Miller recalls in a new interview with Today. Bode took their kids swimming; the family went to a birthday party. Morgan took 19-month-old Emmy to visit friends and grandparents, then returned home to say goodbye to Bode as he took his oldest daughter to a softball game; the couple laughed as Emmy uncharacteristically kissed her father goodbye multiple times. Then Morgan took the other kids next door. "We go over, back and forth, multiple times a week. They're family to us," she says of their neighbors. "And it was just a normal day over there. We sat on the sofa and [Emmy] played in front of us," going back and forth over a span of about 15 feet in the room. Then, mid-conversation, as Morgan sipped her tea, she suddenly realized it was too quiet.
As she was asking the other kids where Emmy was, she turned and saw that the door leading to the back yard—which had been closed—"had this tiny sliver of light coming through the side," she says. "And my heart sank and I opened the door and she was floating in the pool. And I ran and I jumped in." Doctors could not save the toddler, and she died the following day. Now, the Millers say they feel obligated to speak out in an effort to spread awareness of drowning dangers and spare other parents the same pain. After learning that drowning is the leading cause of accidental death for children ages 1 to 4, Bode Miller says they wondered why it isn't talked about more: "I've been to all the pediatrician's meetings and check-ups on our kids. And I can't say it's come up one time. Not a single time," he says. "It's the number one way that you could potentially lose your kid. If it's number one for me, I want to know about it." (More Bode Miller stories.)
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