Royal Watch News

Prince Johan Friso may never regain consciousness

Feb 27, 2012, 13:00 GMT

Prince Johan Friso

Prince Johan Friso of the Netherlands may never regain consciousness.

The 43-year-old royal - who was buried by an avalanche while skiing off-piste in Austria earlier this month - has suffered severe brain damage and doctors have revealed he may never wake up.

Dr. Wolfgang Koller, head of trauma at the Innsbruck hospital where Friso is being treated, said: 'It is clear that the oxygen starvation has caused massive brain damage to the patient. At the moment, it cannot be predicted if he will ever regain consciousness.'

Friso will be moved at a later date to a rehabilitation clinic for further treatment, but Koller has warned it may take years before he awakens from his coma, if he ever does, and any recovery from such significant brain damage is a process of 'months or even years'.

Johan - who has two daughters, Luana, seven, and Zaria, six, with wife Princess Mabel - was trapped under the snow for 15 minutes while skiing off piste in the resort of Lech - where the Dutch royals traditionally take their winter break - and was airlifted to a nearby hospital. It took nearly 50 minutes to reanimate the prince after he was pulled from the snow and Koller says that could have been fatal.

He said: '50 minutes of reanimation is extremely long. You could say too long.'

He has been visited in hospital by his mother Queen Beatrix and Mabel.