Prince Friso of Orange-Nassau

Who was Prince Friso of Orange-Nassau?

Prince Friso of Orange-Nassau was a younger brother of King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands. Prince Friso was a member of the Dutch Royal Family, but because of his marriage without an Act of Consent in 2004, he lost his membership of the Dutch Royal House and was no longer in the line of succession to the throne.

On 17 February 2012, Prince Friso was buried under an avalanche in Lech, Austria, while skiing off piste. He was taken to a hospital in Innsbruck where he was in critical but stable condition. According to his doctor, Dr. Wolfgang Koller, even though he was trapped for a relatively short time and hopes had originally been higher, subsequent neurological tests showed that after fifty minutes of cardiopulmonary resuscitation in moderate hypothermia he suffered massive brain damage due to oxygen shortage. His initial coma later progressed to a minimally conscious state and it was unclear whether he would ever regain full consciousness. On 12 August 2013, one and a half years after the accident, Prince Friso died of complications.