PLACERVILLE, Calif. -- A 50-year-old Placerville man who drowned while trying to rescue his young niece from a man-man pond is being hailed as a hero.

El Dorado County sheriff's spokesman Lt. Bryan Golmitz said Jeffrey Hewitt was in a small row boat with his brother's 6-year-old daughter on Saturday afternoon when the girl ended up in the 20-foot-deep water and Hewitt dove in after her.

He managed to push the girl close enough to shore so her grandmother could reach her, but Hewitt never resurfaced.

Golmitz says a sheriff's dive team found his body in about 6 feet of water after searching the pond on Hewitt's property for several hours.

Sandrea Hewitt, his mother and the girl's grandmother, says uncle and niece often fished together on the pond and her son "gave his life saving her life."