NEWMAN, Calif. — For one Stanislaus County family, Mother's Day was a holiday spent in mourning after a day at the river ended in tragedy.
A volunteer diver discovered the body of 30-year-old mother Brenda Duran in the San Joaquin River near Fisherman's Bend just days after she went missing there.
"Today, I woke up at 1 a.m. and tried to go back to sleep," said Juan Heredia, the diver with 20 years of experience who discovered the mom's body while searching the river Saturday. "It's not easy."
Heredia and his two adult children left a Mother's Day party early at their own home Saturday to help the family in need.
"Yesterday, I got a text message from somebody that was asking me if I'm still diving for searches," said Heredia. "We just took another 15-20 minutes and started driving."
That text was from a family member of Duran, last seen in the river Thursday. Stanislaus County Sheriff's deputies said she was trying to rescue her 11-year-old daughter who was struggling in the water. Her daughter and 14-year-old son made it out safely, but tragically, Duran vanished.
Six hours into Juan and his son Matias's search, on the third day of law enforcement's search, the two found Duran's body.
"I found her in a hole... She was in the bottom of a hole," said Heredia of discovering the body about 100 yards away from the location where she went missing. "That wasn't a place to take the family for swimming."
In an interview Friday, the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Office said they had a dive team on the scene of the search, but that the team was only searching areas by hand where underwater robots weren't able to access or where the robots noted objects of significance.
Heredia's approach was to search the entire bed of the river by hand. The sheriff's office did not immediately respond to a request for an interview Sunday.
According to the sheriff's office, the water in the area at the time was flowing at 1,850 cubic feet per second, the force of nearly 14,000 gallons of water speeding by every second.
"The rivers have a v-shape so everything is running faster under the water than you can see on the surface," said Heredia. "I would recommend people to be in calm water — not to go to the river. If you see the current is too strong, don't go."
Heredia speaks not just from his 20 years of experience scuba diving in oceans, rivers and lakes around the world, but also from his experience in recovering bodies so far this year.
In March, Heredia discovered the body of missing Stockton high school student Xavier Martinez seconds into his own volunteer search six days after law enforcement began searching the same area.
During his State of the City address in April, Stockton Mayor Kevin Lincoln awarded Heredia a key to the city for his volunteer search efforts.
"Always, we are going to be ready to help the community," said Heredia. "You can offer me a million dollars, and I will never take money to do this. This is from my heart from my family to another family."
Heredia said he and his family are ready to help more families find closure and asks that families in need contact him through social media or at (209) 774-6661. He said they are in the process of forming a nonprofit to continue his goal of giving back.
While they are ready if needed, Heredia and his family hope people will heed warnings and avoid tragedy in the first place.
"If you don't know how to swim, believe me, you're not going to be able to rescue nobody," said Heredia. "It's not worth it."
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