On Sunday 31 May, a 37-year-old man was fatally wounded after veering off the road and crashing into a tree on the N12 between Derenbach and Feitsch. The victim was later identified as Kevin Rommes, who lived about two kilometers from the scene of the accident.
RTL's Christophe Hochard met with Kevin's loved ones at his parents home in Allerborn, where they were joined by his older sister, Christa.
His father, Roger Rommes, said that first and foremost, his son had always helped everyone. From his time in the local youth club onward, Kevin was known and loved throughout the community and the northern parts of the country.
The family's life was turned upside down last Sunday when police appeared at their door. Roger remembered asking if something had happened and the officers responding that they needed to come in.
He said that was when he knew something was wrong.
The officers then told him that his son had been involved in a fatal accident. The call came in at 7.37am, and the rescuers spent 25 minutes attempting to save Kevin, but they were unable to do so.
Kevin's father asked if his son was fastened, and the officers confirmed that he was.
Roger had been home alone that morning. His wife, Kevin's mother, was on her way back from vacation.
"I then picked up the phone and informed my wife", Roger explained.
"I don't have time", Kevin often told his parents, according to his mother Vivianne Rommes. "His phone would regularly buzz, and then someone would need his help. Then our son would set off."
She continued praising him for his selflessness:
At home, he would look after his tractors when he had time. I went to Brachtenbach for Télévie this year. With his tractor. When I got home, I told him that I had been told four times that I needed new shoes. 'Do you think I'm a millionaire?', Kevin asked me. The next day, he took the wheels off the tractor, and two days later, I had new shoes. That's just how he was.
Kevin worked as an agricultural mechanic for the Wincrange municipality during the past 10 years. Thanks to his occupation, he was well-known among the local farmers.
Whenever someone had a problem, they would ask Kevin for help, and he would always come through.
His involvement with the fire department was another one of the reasons he was known everywhere. In February 2000, 11-year-old Kevin joined the Wincrange youth fire department.
Last Sunday's accident was therefore not an easy deployment for the rescue workers, as station chief Paul Thines remembers: "When an alert goes out, it's a mission like any other. But as we're driving away, we always think that it could be someone we know. We're in a large municipality where everyone knows each other."
The rescuers arrived at Kevin Rommes' accident scene within 10 minutes.
Kevin's sister Christa is five years older than him. Married with a nine-year-old daughter named Chloé, who just celebrated her birthday on 29 May, Christa chose Kevin as her daughter's godfather.
"When I needed him, he was there", Christa said about her brother. "I still see him standing in the garage with his arms in the air, holding onto the garage door and smiling. That's how I'll remember him."
Carlo Weber was a good friend of Kevin's. "He was like a second father to our Kevin", said his parents. "The entire town of Wincrange is devastated by Kevin's death. Like everyone, Kevin had his flaws. But when someone needed him, he was always there. We often called him 'Teddybäerchen' ("little teddy bear"). When he'd get upset, it was hard to calm him down. But we always managed to do so."
During her vacation, Kevin's mother had bought her son a T-shirt featuring Bud Spencer in reference to the film Uppercut, from which Kevin had gotten the nickname 'Mücke', the name of Spencer's character in the German translation. Sadly, she never got to give him the present.
The Diekirch public prosecutor's office has requested an autopsy of Kevin's body. The Rommes family therefore has not been reunited with their son, and do not yet know the exact cause of his death.
