SISTERS, OR (KTVZ/CNN) – It took more than a year to reunite an Oregon teen with his lost GoPro.
How it got back to 16-year-old Ethan Tolle in time for Christmas Day is a story of adventure and fate.
Ethan lost the GoPro in the waters of the Tamolitch Blue Pool in the summer of 2016. It was strapped to his chest, but came off and sank to the bottom. The pool is more than 30 feet deep in spots.
Ethan was sure it was gone forever, but an avid adventurer by the name of Louie Wray found it a short time later.
But before it eventually got back to the Tolle family, Wray took it on his year-long adventures across the country, from exploring the Florida Keys underwater to slack-lining on the mountain tops of West Virginia.
Wray captured it all on Ethan’s GoPro.
Also on the camera was the video of a bike ride Ethan had taken with his uncle from Deschutes River Woods to Bend, OR.
Wray used Google Maps, tracked down an address and got in contact with Ethan's aunt and uncle.
Ethan's uncle then reached out to his mom to fill her in on the good news.
"At first when he called, I was like, 'Are you kidding me?" Leah Tolle said. "It was so crazy to think how deep that [pool] is, that somebody actually retrieved it -- and it sounds like he retrieved it not too long [after] it was lost, probably within a couple of weeks."
Ethan got his GoPro back on Christmas. It came with a special letter from Wray.
"He started out reading a letter he got from Louie, who lives in the Florida Keys,” Ethan's mother said. “Then he started watching videos, and Louie had shared some of his adventures."
For Wray, returning the camera was merely a pause in his busy life. He’s currently traveling in Taiwan.
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