Apprentice star Tre Azam nearly died in a horrific car crash when he fell asleep at the wheel, it has been revealed. The 27-year-old dozed off as he was driving at 70 miles per hour down a motorway, lost control of his car and smashed into a tree. He was so badly injured after the crash that he was confined to a wheel chair in hospital for nine months and had to learn to walk again. The crash, which happened eight years ago as Tre was travelling from Brussels to Paris with a friend, left the vehicle crushed “like an accordion”. “Tre knows how lucky he is and since that crash he doesn’t take anything for granted,” says Darrin des Bignes, 28, who remarkably escaped the accident with cuts and bruises while Tre was thrown from the wreckage. “He had been asleep for a mile. The car looked like an accordion. I thought he had died.” Darrin goes on to tell the Sunday Mirror that Tre’s miraculous survival may have informed the forceful personality that irritates Apprentice viewers and contestants alike: “Being involved in the crash gave him confidence,” he says. “If you can get over an ordeal like that, you feel you can achieve anything. He does come across as arrogant so I can understand why some viewers might not like him.”
