HOUSTON — The family of a man who drowned in the San Jacinto River on Sunday night is sharing their grief.
German Reynaga, 28, died while trying to help save a stranger from drowning.
"We were just going there for fun," Reynaga’s nephew, Saul Gonzales, said. "You know, just riding motorcycles, go to the beach, getting wet, distract us from work."
After the sun went down, at about 9 p.m., Gonzales said they saw a woman in the water who started having trouble.
"She was, like, yelling for help," Gonzales said. "So my uncle went there ... He got her, she was saved. But he couldn’t, I don’t know, the tide got him."
Gonzales said others in their group tried to swim to Reynaga but they couldn’t get to him.
"I just heard, like, ‘help, help, help,’” Gonzales said. “I was trying to look for him but it was dark all around me.”
Reynaga was nowhere to be found. Rescuers spent the night searching and eventually found his body using sonar equipment.
Gonzales said he didn't get the name of the woman his uncle saved, but said she stayed and waited with the family until his uncle was brought to shore at about 4 a.m.
Now, the focus shifts to the ones Reynaga left behind: A wife, a little girl and a little boy.
"The kids had everything," Gonzales said. "Everything they wanted. A loving dad."
Family members said Reynaga loved music and loved life. He worked hard and they say he was the best electrician they’d ever seen. They say he died doing something only he would do: saving a person whose name he didn’t even know.
Family members created a GoFundMe account for Reynaga’s children and so that he can be buried in Mexico.