THE Countess of Wessex has been made patron of Thames Valley Air Ambulance after revealing how it once helped save her life.

Sophie Helen Rhys-Jones told this week how she was airlifted to hospital from her home in Bagshot Park, Surrey, by the air ambulance in 2001, when she suffered a potentially life-threatening ectopic pregnancy.

The countess, six weeks pregnant at the time, underwent an emergency operation at the King Edward VII’s Hospital, but lost her baby.

Mrs Rhys-Jones, who is married to the Queen’s youngest son Edward, the Earl of Wessex, has been a supporter of the service ever since.

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The charity announced yesterday that the countess had officially become its royal patron.

It said in a statement: “Having personally benefited from its expert crew in 2001, the countess knows only too well how every day, anyone in the community could be in urgent need of the organisation’s vital emergency service.”

The countess personally thanked the crew who flew her to hospital – pilot Andy Busby and paramedic Tim Goddard – in 2002 at a dinner to raise funds for the service - then known as the Thames Valley and Chiltern Air Ambulance.

She has gone on to have two children - 15-year-old Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor and 11-year-old Viscount Severn.