The woman fighting Olympic skier Bode Miller for custody of their baby was a “Hero of the Year” firefighter who risked her life to save a child.
Now Sara McKenna, 27, is deeply in debt, struggling to raise her newborn and attending Columbia — all while fighting the millionaire athlete in a costly legal battle.
McKenna was serving in the Camp Pendleton, Calif. fire station in 2011 when she won fame for battling a house fire.
“There were flames literally shooting out of the garage. A giant propane tank had exploded,” she recalled. “All that was left was a back bedroom with smoke pouring out of the roof.”
“A couple of cops ran up and said, ‘There’s a baby inside! There’s a baby inside!,’” she said.
McKenna rushed in in a desperate bid to find what she believed was a baby trapped in the flames.
“I was reaching around, searching for a crib. I could tell the room was about to explode from the heat,” she said.
“I felt someone grab the back of my (oxygen) tank and say ‘You’ve got to get out, the room is going to blow.’”
She was pulled out and treated for second-degree burns of her face and arms. “Oh, my God, I failed,” she said. “I just let a baby die.”
In fact, it was a 13-year-old girl who was trapped in the fire and had died.
McKenna, honorably discharged as a Marine in 2011, received her “Hero of the Year” award from the Defense Department that year. This was before she met Miller and became pregnant.
Miller, who initially wanted her to abort the pregnancy, changed his mind and is fighting her for custody of Samuel Bode Miller McKenna, who was born February 23.
McKenna moved to New York to study pre-law at Columbia under the GI Bill, while Miller waged his legal battle. “I gave up everything in California,” she said.
She went through premature labor because, a doctor told her, she was under intense stress.
Now she says the pressure, from the court case, motherhood and her education, is huge.
“I’m up at 3 a.m. trying to breast feed and write a research paper, in tears,” she said. “All I want is an hour of sleep and a shower.”
“My whole experience of the beginning of motherhood was ruined,” she said. “I couldn’t enjoy any of it because I was so stressed out.”
“It’s literally the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life,” she said. “I don’t know what’s gotten me through it. It must be sheer determination.”
Now, $35,00 in debt, she faces a new hurdle: fighting the custody battle back in California. A Manhattan Family Court referee agreed to move the case back across the country, at Miller’s request.