Dutch Prince Friso dies after months in coma caused by ski accident
JOHAN Friso, the bespectacled Dutch prince who
avoided the limelight and gave up his position in line to the
throne after getting entangled in a scandal with his bride-to-be,
died yesterday - 18 months after a skiing accident that left his
brain gravely injured. He was 44.
The royal house said the prince, known as Friso, died of
complications from the accident, without giving more details. It
said he had never regained more than "minimal consciousness".
Friso was struck by an avalanche while skiing off-trail in Lech,
Austria, February 17, 2012, and was buried until rescuers pulled
him from the snow, unconscious, 20 minutes later. He was
resuscitated at the scene and flown to a hospital, but remained in
coma for months.
Until the dramatic incidents in Lech, Friso, the second of the
former Queen Beatrix's three sons, had sometimes been known as
"Prince Brilliant". He studied at the University of California
Berkeley, the Technical University of Delft and Erasmus University
at Rotterdam, graduating from the Dutch universities cum laude with
degrees in engineering and economics. He later earned an MBA at
France's prestigious INSEAD school of business.
But the central event of his life as a royal came when he gave up
his claim to the throne in order to marry Dutchwoman Mabel Wisse
Smit, in a wedding not sanctioned by the government.
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