It is a changed Douglas Kmiec who has returned to his position as US Ambassador following a vacation turned calamity when a traffic accident claimed the life of two close friends and left him badly injured.

“The experience was one which was indeed tragic in every way, and as the kind of unexpected and unwanted tragedy that one encounters it can’t help but change your life,” Prof. Kmiec told The Times from his residence in Attard after flying back on Monday evening.

On August 25, Prof. Kmiec was driving a Hyundai Accent when it drifted to the side of the road and into a ditch, killing Sr Mary Campbell, 74, and his confessor, Mgr John Sheridan, 92, who passed away three weeks later.

“The people who were in the accident with me were dear friends, members of the clergy; people whom I had greatly missed during my first year of service here in Malta, and yet for reasons known only to God on that ­afternoon they were to be taken from us,” he said, pausing between words as he recalled the incident.

“To my knowledge, the highway patrol has classified this unfortunate incident as an accident, and to this day it’s the kind that obviously there was no... no good explanation for, but in terms of the traffic authorities of the US they’re treating it as an accident.”

A devout Catholic, the ambassador was “deeply moved” by the support he received from the Maltese while in hospital, and said it changed his perspective.

“So many people here in Malta wrote, called, and in some way expressed their love and their kindness and their understanding for this type of tragic circumstance,” he said.

“I’d always had a great respect for the faith commitment of the people of Malta but I now understand the depth of that faith commitment.”

The ambassador, who turned 59 on Friday, is on the mend, but will require another operation in a few months’ time, which he hopes and expects can be done in Malta.

“I still have an incomplete colon; you might say the ambassador has a semi-colon,” he joked.

“There are some limitations in terms of my physical abilities, but nothing that will prevent me doing my work in earnest. I’ll just have to watch the diet and allow the healing of the wound that exists in my body.”

He can still, however, eat Maltese bread, something he missed while he was away.

“I was hoping the ħobza I was used to here would somehow make its way to me,” he said of his time in hospital.

Following his tragedy, his work has taken on another dimension: “When you lose two close friends like this, the expression that comes to mind is that you have to live not only for yourself, but for them.

“These were two people who accomplished great good in their long service to the community.

“As I told my embassy staff, I now return to my duties acting for three, and I expect us to work three times as hard to accomplish three times as much, and I will always be doing it in memory of these lost friends, but also in response to the great kindness and compassion shown to me by the people of Malta.”