Diver who recovered body of 2-year-old Oregon boy drove 12 hours to help: ‘That pain - I feel it’

A picture of a man

Diver Juan Heredia volunteered to help find Dane Paulsen. On Tuesday, Heredia recovered the 2-year-old boy's body.Courtesy of Fox 12 Oregon

Diver Juan Heredia jumped into the Siletz River on Tuesday morning, his mind focused on 2-year-old Dane Paulsen’s sweet features and the clothing the boy’s mother last saw him wearing: jeans, blue shoes and a hoodie with bear-shaped ears.

The day before, Heredia, 52, had driven about 12 hours from his home in Stockton, California, to help with the exhaustive search for the toddler, who had gone missing March 1 while playing in the front yard of the family’s home along the river.

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