Cowichan teen missing in woods for five days, found safe

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When Owen Weld was found on a logging road near Lake Cowichan on Sunday afternoon and offered a ride, he initially declined the ride; He didn’t know what day of the week it was, never mind that he was the subject of a massive five-day campaign. look for.

The 19-year-old had already walked about 15 kilometers and when he saw that the camping vehicle was full of equipment, he did not want to bother.

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“That’s typical of him,” said his mother Diana Weld, a humanities teacher at Cowichan High School.

Fortunately, campers traveling along Caycuse Main near Lake Cowichan realized that Owen needed help and insisted that he accept a ride.

The campers fed him and charged his phone, and once he was within cell phone range, Owen called his father, Bill Tucker, who works for BC Transit.

Diana had just finished exploring the paths already searched in Port Renfrew. Just before she found out that her son had been found, she was standing with friends on the beach watching the waves and the surfers.

“It was really difficult. “I think I had resigned myself to the fact that we weren’t going to see it.”

And then he got the call that his son was safe.

The campers took Owen to a Tim Hortons in Lake Cowichan, where he was met by his father, other family and an ambulance that transported him, dehydrated and in pain, to Cowichan District Hospital, where he received a CT scan.

“That’s where I first saw him,” Diana said. “He started crying immediately and I started crying and gave him a hug. He apologized immediately and I said, ‘Why are you apologizing? You are here and alive and we love you.’”

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Owen was released from Cowichan District Hospital shortly after noon Monday, happy to return home to be with his family, eat and shower, his mother said.

Owen was last seen on February 14 at 4:17 pm in his black RAV4 leaving the A&W restaurant in Lake Cowichan.

Owen’s mother quickly knew that night that something was wrong, as he was expected at home. He had just worked his first shift at Columbia Ice Ltd. in Duncan and was due to return to work Thursday.

The family believes Owen had driven about 20 kilometers on a logging road near Lake Cowichan on Wednesday afternoon and then crashed, possibly in a mudslide on the road, deploying the airbags.

The accident must have happened just before 6:40 p.m. on Wednesday, her mother said, because she made several attempts to call 911 and to call and text her parents without success because she was out of cellphone range.

“It breaks me to think about what happened,” Diana said. “Friday night, I thought we weren’t going to find him.”

Owen’s family believes he was unconscious for much of the time between Wednesday’s accident and Sunday. He was reluctant to drink water from the stream “but finally he did” and collected rainwater. On Sunday, equipped with a map and water, he attempted to walk to safety.

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Diana credits Owen’s father for his son’s ability to survive and find his way in the forest.

“Right now, I know I should be feeling excited and relieved and I’m in it, but I’m strangely impassive right now and I’m processing it,” Diana said. “It hasn’t really been a roller coaster, it’s just been hell.”

Diana said her family is full of gratitude for the “community that supported us” and the “great support from family and friends.”

He said an army of former and current school district teachers, staff and students, as well as sports and volunteer groups, joined the search. Owen played rugby, baseball and soccer.

Lead organizers included Corina Fitznar, mother of Owen’s best friend and also a teacher, who established communications and a “Find Owen Weld” Facebook page to help coordinate and map search areas, while teacher Kelly Dougan started a community search on February 15. .

Laketown Ranch, where Sunfest is normally held, offered its facilities as a staging area for search teams and businesses, including Moo’s Pizza in Cobble Hill, which fed volunteers.

On Saturday, Owen’s disappearance involved 30 search teams and two aircraft, according to Cowichan Search and Rescue.

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“It was overwhelming,” Diana said. “Reach out to your community, they are there, let them love you.”

When shown private posts and messages from the time he was missing, Owen was also overwhelmed by the response, “tearful and grateful.” He said he had no idea so many people would rally around him.

Diana said lessons learned from the ordeal include the advantages of carrying a GPS or satellite device when out of cell phone range, informing loved ones when you are going to remote areas alone, ideally traveling to remote areas with a friend, and know that the community is there for you in your time of need.

The search and rescue comes on the heels of two other missing and found reports last week.

Maddison Waterhouse, 13, of Campbell River, who was reported missing by Campbell River RCMP on Feb. 17, was located safe in Courtenay by her grandmother and sister on Monday.

The search for Cora Potoski, 16, and Dommie Malcolmson, 15, both of Campbell River, concluded Friday when the girls, last seen on Feb. 12, were located and found safe by police dog Norco. the RCMP.

It was the resolution, said Const. of the Campbell River RCMP. Maury Tiro, the one who is always expected in the searches.

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