Man who couldn't swim drowns while saving 5-year-old boy from a raging river

A man named Victor Mozqueda died last Saturday after saving a toddler who fell into a river. Mozqueda was on a trip with friends when the incident occurred.

Even though he couldn’t swim, Mozqueda was one of the first people to jump in after Vincent Gonzalez when he fell in the raging river. According to CNN, a GoFundMe account was created to help Mozqueda’s family with the costs of his funeral.

Mozqueda, 22, left his Santa Clarita, California; home on Saturday morning for a family trip to Sequoia National Park. He was on a trip with family friends Anita Baker and Isasais Gonzalez and their son Vincent Gonzalez, 5, according to his brother-in-law Ivan Gonzalez, who’s also Vincent’s uncle.

When they arrived at the park they were eager to walk alongside the river near the Sequoia entrance sign in Tulare County. The edge of the river was slippery and Vincent fell in

For more on this story go to our Twitter account @amomama_usa. Knowing that he couldn’t swim, Mozqueda jumped in to save the boy at around 6:45 a.m.

Maria Mozqueda, his sister, created a GoFundMe campaign for Mozqueda's burial costs. It shed some light on the occurrences of that day saying Mozqueda was able to keep the boy on top of his head.

"He didn't deserve to do die like that. He didn't."

Maria Mozqueda, KTLA, June 24, 2018

He managed to do this even while he was underwater. His intention was so that Vincent could breathe. The boy’s father and mother had also jumped in to try and save their child.

Mozqueda never let go of him even when they went down under the currents a few times. ‘The last effort he did was to throw Vincent out of the strong current so that his father could barely grab him,’ read the campaign.

Two fisherman bystanders helped to get the parents and child out of the water. A fisherman and the boy's father started CPR on the boy and were able to resuscitate him.

Vincent was later transported by ambulance to a helicopter. He was then flown to a hospital in Visalia and has since been transported to another hospital and he is now recovering.

At the time, Ivan had said the boy, who was at a Fresno hospital, was out of an intensive care unit and had been scheduled to be released on Monday. "He saved my nephew," the brother-in-law said to KTLA referring to Mozqueda.

"He loved playing his guitar, singing, soccer, and hiking," Maria revealed. She further described him as a happy person, humble, caring, loving, respectful, laid back, and friendly.

Maria shared that he loved going outdoors and being in nature.