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Surfer injured at Sombrio after wave slams log into leg
Times Colonist12 December 2025p. A4Roxanne Egan-Elliott, Times ColonistJDF SAR era
Roxanne Egan-Elliott, Times Colonist. “Surfer injured at Sombrio after wave slams log into leg”, Times Colonist, p. A4, 12 December 2025 ref-only
Summary
Surfer Ethan Baker was walking into the water at Sombrio Beach the previous week when he looked down briefly to attach his surfboard's leash to his ankle. He had noticed a log in the water but didn't think much of it until a wave launched it into his leg. He was knocked over by the impact, and when he looked at his leg he could instantly tell it was broken. The 19-year-old called his friends for help; waves were lapping him and they needed to get him out of the water, so they got him onto a surfboard as a makeshift stretcher to move him farther up the beach. Juan de Fuca Search and Rescue received the call around noon on 5 December, said rescue co-ordinator Victoria Clarke: "It was severe enough that we wanted to ensure that he had quick access to medical attention." Cloud cover prevented a helicopter from reaching Baker on the beach, about 19 kilometres south of Port Renfrew, so crews hiked in a short distance from the parking lot, assessed him, stabilised the injury and carried him on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance. In hospital, doctors realigned Baker's broken tibia and fibula before performing surgery to install a metal rod and multiple screws in his leg.
Details
| Headline | “Surfer injured at Sombrio after wave slams log into leg” |
|---|---|
| Publication | Times Colonist |
| Date | 12 December 2025 |
| Page | A4 |
| Section | Vancouver Island |
| Byline | Roxanne Egan-Elliott, Times Colonist |
| Era | JDF SAR era |
| Document type | news report |
| Original article | ProQuest — the scanned page in the Times Colonist digital archive ↗ |
| Source | ProQuest Digital Times Colonist via GVPL (bulk export 2026-07-16) |
| Accessed | 2026-07-16 |
| Licensing | ref-only |
| Record confidence | confirmed |
Archivist's note
This page resolves a question the archive had flagged. The OCR held for it contained text about the Sombrio surfer rescue, which appeared to contradict its 12 December date because the same story also appears on the 18 December page. Reading the scan settles it: this is the original full report, and the 18 December X5 page is a shorter rerun in the Extra! section. Note also the closing line, that with the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail closed by storm damage the call volume has dropped and hikers appear to be respecting the closure — the only measure in the archive of what the closure did to demand. This page was recovered from inside the ProQuest bulk export already held in the archive, where it had been listed as referenced but not held.
The clipping
