Tim Sorensen still remembers the words running through his mind as he lay injured beneath the snow near Mt. Cain.
“Just hold on, just hold on, just hold on.”
Six hours passed before rescue crews reached the Victoria resident after he was caught in a backcountry avalanche on Feb. 2, 2025. The slide carried him through trees, leaving him with catastrophic injuries to his left leg before he was airlifted to Vancouver General Hospital.
More than a year later, Sorensen is focused less on the avalanche itself and more on what comes next.
The high school teacher is now fundraising for a properly fitted prosthetic leg, something he says would restore the independence needed to return to work, stay active and continue rebuilding his life.
“This isn’t just about walking,” Sorensen told Victoria News. “It’s about freedom, independence, and getting back to the life I want to live.”
A GoFundMe campaign has already raised more than $36, 300 toward its $50,000 goal since launching on May 2.
Sorensen, who was born in Nanaimo and raised in Qualicum Beach before eventually settling in Victoria, said the support has been emotional to witness.
“I feel so well supported,” he said. “You can see the names of the people who donated, and it just feels great to have that level of support, that people are rooting for me.”
Sorensen was snowboarding near Mt. Cain when the avalanche struck during the group’s third run of the day.
“It was a beautiful powder day,” he recalled. “The whole avalanche, this big slab, broke around me.”
As the avalanche pulled him downhill, Sorensen said everything quickly went dark.
“I started tumbling, and I could feel myself hitting objects underneath. I thought it was boulders, but it was trees.”
His snowboard tore free on one side while the force of the slide twisted his other leg violently.
“It just was a mess,” he said.
Sorensen managed to punch one arm through the snowpack and create a breathing hole while two people he was riding with dug him out. He then spent six hours lying in the snow waiting for rescue crews to reach him.
“I was conscious from the point of the accident until I went into the first surgery,” he said. “It was just hold on, just hold on, just hold on.”
Rescue crews eventually transported Sorensen off the mountain before North Shore Rescue flew him directly to Vancouver General Hospital’s rooftop helipad, marking the first time the organization had completed a direct “life or limb” rooftop transport to the hospital.
Despite the trauma, Sorensen said talking openly about the experience early in recovery helped him process what happened.
“One of the best things I did when I was in the hospital was actually to talk about it early and share some emotion,” he said.
Today, his attention is fixed firmly on recovery and the future.
Sorensen has spent months testing different prosthetic knees and sockets while attending physiotherapy, walking, training and gym sessions. He said the fundraiser would allow him to purchase a properly fitted prosthetic leg and socket tailored to his current needs.
“At the end of that is a leg,” he said. “It means me actually being upright and being able to walk. It means life with movement.”
Right now, he still relies heavily on crutches, though he continues pushing himself physically whenever possible.
Recently, he travelled to Banff for Beyond Adaptive, a Para Snowboard Development camp run alongside Canada Snowboard, where he got back on the slopes for the second time since the accident. It was a week prior that he touched the snow for the first time in Whistler.
“One of my goals was to stand on snow again,” he said. “The sense of freedom, it feels incredible.”
Sorensen said the experience felt like a full-circle moment after months of recovery.
“To be able to ride down and control the board again, man, the sense of freedom,” he said. “It’s like that feeling of riding a bike for the first time.”
He also has another ambitious goal in mind.
In 2027, Sorensen hopes to ride the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR) from Banff to the USA/Mexico border with support from friends and family.
“It’s a lofty goal,” he said. “But I think it’s important when you’re going through recovery to have goals that keep you moving forward and hopeful.”
The fundraiser target remains the immediate priority as Sorensen works toward securing the prosthetic equipment he says would dramatically improve his daily life.
“Independence means being able to move forward and make plans,” Sorensen said. “To go to work, go to the grocery store, go to the gym, pursue the goals of life without being hindered by limitations.”
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