Trevor Rees-Jones

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Trevor Rees-Jones (born March 3, 1968 in Rinteln , Germany ) is a British bodyguard. On August 31, 1997, he was seriously wounded in a car accident in which Diana, Princess of Wales died. Due to his severe head injuries, Rees-Jones hardly remembers details of the accident.

biography

Rees-Jones has an older brother, Gareth, and a younger brother named John. At the age of 10 he and his family returned to Oswestry , on the outskirts of Wales , near the home of his father in his youth. At the now closed Fitzalan School, he enrolled in the Combined Cadet Force .

In 1987 Rees-Jones enlisted in the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment , where he served in a mission in Northern Ireland , and was awarded the General Service Medal .

accident

On August 31, 1997, Rees-Jones was seriously injured in a car accident, he was in the passenger seat and was the only survivor. His face was dented from the accident, and numerous bones were broken or splintered. He was in an artificial coma for 10 days . His face was reconstructed from old family photos by the maxillofacial surgeon Luc Chikhani with around 150 pieces of titanium to hold the bones in place and restore them to their original shape. Within a year, his face was almost as it was before the accident.

The hospital costs were covered by Dodi Al-Fayed's father, Mohamed Al-Fayed , who was also Rees-Jones's employer at the time of the accident. The UK's National Health Service covered the remaining costs .

Rees-Jones returned to the UK on October 3, 1997 after a month of hospitalization . At the time, he could only communicate by whispering and writing down answers. He quit his job as a bodyguard on May 19, 1998.

After recovering from his injuries, Rees-Jones moved to northern Shropshire and worked for a time in a small family business, a sportswear shop, in Oswestry .

Works

Rees-Jones wrote a book about his experience, with the help of ghostwriter Moira Johnston.

  • 2000: The Bodyguard's Story: Diana, the Crash, and the Sole Survivor ( ISBN 0446527750 ), in German The Bodyguard: What really happened when Diana died? ( ISBN 3453181107 )

The book reconstructs the events using Rees-Jones' own fragmentary memories, supplemented by those of his family and friends. He decided to publish the book because of some bizarre stories about the accident and because his former employer, Al-Fayed, accused him of not doing his job right.

Private life

On August 12, 1995, Rees-Jones married Sue Jones, in Oswestry , where the couple had previously met at Fitzalan School. Jones filed for divorce in June 1997. In his second marriage on February 15, 2003, he married the teacher Ann Scott. The wedding ceremony took place in Welshpool , Wales .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Searching His Memory People.com
  2. ↑ a b Tim Hulse: In The News: Trevor Rees-Jones remembers the night of tragedy . In: The Independent , March 2, 1998. 
  3. ↑ Brent Sadler: Diana's bodyguard returns to Britain . CNN. October 3, 1997. Retrieved October 16, 2012.
  4. ^ Diana bodyguard quits job , BBC News. April 20, 1998. 
  5. ↑ Diana's Bodyguard: What's the story? , BBC News. March 6, 2000. 
personal data
SURNAME Rees-Jones, Trevor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rees, Trevor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British bodyguard
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1968
PLACE OF BIRTH Rinteln , Germany