For two years, Robin McCrear wondered what happened to the last video footage her son recorded before he died.

Her son, Richard Lee Ragland III, 22, d rowned in June 2017 near a waterfall in Foster Falls State Park in Tennessee , she said. It was a devastating loss for Ms. McCrear, 51, who described her son as charismatic, popular and driven. “We just miss him so much,” she said. “The joy, the energy.”

She knew that Mr. Ragland had been recording his travels with a GoPro camera, which he had carried with him into the water. But the little machine had never been found.

So Ms. McCrear said she was speechless this month when she learned that a stranger had located her son’s footage in Tennessee and was bringing it to her in Georgia. “To receive that phone call — oh my God, it was a dream come true,” she said.