Biography

The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's Automotive Industries page on X October 2024, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Rees-Jones was born on 3 March 1968 in Rinteln, West Germany, the middle-born of three boys of Colin Rees, a surgeon in the British Army, and Gill, a nurse. He has an older brother, Gareth, and younger brother, John. At ten, he returned with his family to Oswestry, on the Welsh border near his father's childhood home. At Fitzalan High School, he enrolled in the Combined Cadet Force.

On 31 August 1997, Rees-Jones was seriously injured in the crash that resulted in the death of Princess Diana. The princess's companion, Dodi Fayed, and their chauffeur, Henri Paul, were found dead inside the car; Rees-Jones was the sole survivor of the crash. He was conscious after the crash. His face was flattened, with numerous bones broken or crushed, and was reconstructed afterwards with old family photographs for guidance by French facial doctor Luc Chikhani, with about 150 pieces of titanium to hold the bones together and to recreate the former shape. Within about one year, his face was nearly back to normal.

Hospital care costs were paid by Dodi's father, Mohamed Al-Fayed, Rees-Jones' employer at the time of the crash, and the rest by the British National Health Service (NHS). At first, it was widely rumoured that Rees-Jones had lost his tongue in the crash, but this was not true. He underwent a ten-hour operation to restore his jaw to its former condition.

After spending more than a month in hospital, Rees-Jones returned to the United Kingdom on 3 October 1997. At the time, he was able to communicate only by whispering and writing down answers. He resigned from his job as a bodyguard on 19 May 1998. Al-Fayed was reported as saying that his job would be available if he wished to return.

Following recovery from his injuries, Rees-Jones moved back to Oswestry and worked in a shop.

He wrote a book, published in 2000 and titled The Bodyguard's Story: Diana, the Crash, and the Sole Survivor, about his experiences, with the help of ghostwriter Moira Johnston. The book reconstructed the events from Rees-Jones's partial memories and those of his family and friends.

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