The diver who found a 7-year-old lost at sea describes his process.

Juan Heredia learned about the tragedy unfolding in Big Sur while he was at home in Stockton. As he watched the news on TV with his wife about the 15- to 20-foot waves that swept a 7-year-old away from her family at Garrapata State Park on Friday afternoon, Nov. 14, he believed with certitude that he would be able to locate her, even after other searches had so far been unsuccessful.

So, he drove. It took him about three hours to get to the scene of the incident on Sunday, Nov. 16 after two full days of searching during daylight hours.

He had never been to Big Sur before, and it was his first time conducting a recovery mission in the ocean. The waves were big and the storm was steady; a multi-agency large-scale operation had been suspended the night prior. When he arrived, local lifeguards tried to prevent him from going out for his own safety.

“I’m the one that chooses the risk. They have to somehow understand that I’m doing this for the family,” he says. “But I understand that they don’t want more tragedy.”

The risk, however, extends beyond his own safety. In incidents like these, there is a careful process and protocol that are followed out of respect for the family, according to sources familiar with such procedures. For self-appointed missions in unfamiliar places, it is a fragile space for Heredia to enter – and one he is still relatively new to.

His first recovery was in March 2024, where he helped a family locate their son who drowned in a river in Stockton. A hobby diver (both a free diver and a scuba diver), that was his first time helping with such a search, and what he thought would be his last.

Five more requests of similar nature led him to create the nonprofit Angels Recovery Dive Team in August that year. Since, he’s helped recover 15 people.

“We never say body,” Heredia says. “We always say son and daughters, because that’s what they are.”

At about 1:20pm on Nov. 16, two days after she was swept out by the surf, Heredia located Anzi Hu of Calgary, Alberta, about a half-mile north of where she was last seen.

Her father, 39-year-old Yuji Hu, drowned in an attempt to rescue her, and was recovered by an off-duty peace officer. The child’s mother, who followed her husband and daughter into the water was able to return to shore. She survived and was treated for hypothermia. A 2-year-old child on the beach was unharmed.