PEMBROKE PARK, Fla. – A man who made a career out of diving in murky canals to search for missing South Florida residents has died.
The family of Derek Borrero told Local 10 News that the recreational diver and leader of the volunteer group Guardians for the Missing died Saturday.
Earlier this month, Local 10 News reporter Eric Yutzy spoke to Borrero from his hospital bed, where he was battling a virus that led to congestive heart failure. His doctors told him he needed a heart and a lung transplant from a single donor.
Family members were hopeful that Borrero would be strong enough to stay on the waiting list, but ultimately his lungs failed.
Borrero led a volunteer group of divers who coordinate with law enforcement to search the many South Florida canals for missing people. Local 10 interviewed him last year after Borrero's team found William Naylor, who was missing for nearly a decade. The group also recently located missing teacher Lisa Hayden.
For Borrero, the water was his calling.
"I've got to be in the water or my gills start drying up," he told Yutzy shortly before his death. "If I could get in there, believe me, I'd be in there right now."
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