MH17 10 years on: Toowoomba running group to honour memories of Roger, Jill Guard 10 years after tragedy

It’s been 10 years since two Queensland doctors were killed in the MH17 disaster. Now one of their closests friends has described how their deaths sent shockwaves through their hometown.

Even 10 years since the tragedy of the MH17 disaster, John Gillett still thinks he might turn around and see his best friend Roger Guard standing there.

“The weekend (after the incident), I was looking at my copy of The Australian and it had (Roger and wife Jill’s) photo there,” the fellow doctor said.

“My youngest fellow was touching the picture — he was so sad, trying to comprehend he’d never see them again.

“We were all doing the same, it’s taken a long time to heal and there’s still a little hole there.

“Their picture sits on our fridge, they’re still part of us.”

Toowoomba MH17 victims Roger and Jill Guard (left) with close friends John and Chris Gillett.

The Guards’ deaths, two of 38 Australians killed when Russian-backed separatist forces shot down the Malaysia Airlines flight over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, sent shockwaves through both the nation and Toowoomba.

Roger and Jill, who were both doctors, were well-known for their involvement with the Toowoomba Road Runners and respected across the community.

“He impressed me because he had this high-profile job as a pathologist, and he continued to work hard in the public sector for the government while his colleagues went private,” Mr Gillett said.

“As part of his job, a car came with it and he made his car available for any pathology work with his team at the hospital.”

The deadly incident that killed more than 300 people marked a major escalation point in the Donbas conflict, which has grown into the Russio-Ukrainian that has engulfed most of eastern Europe.

The geopolitical implications of the couple’s deaths were not lost on Mr Gillett, who said the Garden City felt different after Roger and Jill were killed.

“My children were devastated when they died - we thought the world was ending,” he said.

“That was the beginning of the Ukraine War and it felt like Toowoomba lost its innocence that day.

“It was like we were being dragged into this global war — suddenly something that was so distant from our shores, we were right in it.”

Toowoomba MH17 victims Roger and Jill Guard with Matt Gillett, the son of the couple's close friends John and Chris.

The Guards weren’t just neighbours and friends to the Gillets but surrogate grandparents to their three children.

“My parents were quite old and my father had died, so on the grandparent’s days at school, Jill would be the stand-in grandmother for our kids,” Mr Gillett said.

“Our little one Matt, he would wander off down to their place and Jill would teach him how to cook or swim — they would bend us over backwards for us.

“Jill would make all the kids a birthday cake, and it wasn’t just any birthday cake — they were grandparents to our children.”

Mr Gillett will speak at a special memoral ceremony on Sunday morning at Middle Ridge Park, to honour a friend he described as a “simple, straight-forward man”.

“My son is coming from Innisfail to attend — he just said, ‘I have to be there’,” he said.

Jill and Roger Guard take in the view from Mt Coot-tha in Brisbane in 2012.:Photo Contributed

Earlier: Special tribute to MH17 victims on 10th anniversary

Friends and family of Toowoomba victims of the MH17 crash Roger and Jill Guard will honour the couple at the weekend to mark 10 years since the tragic incident.

The respected Toowoomba doctors were two of 38 victims killed when the Malaysia Airlines plane was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014 by Russian-backed separatist forces.

Their deaths rocked the Toowoomba community, with some friends describing it as the day the city “lost its innocence”.

Members of the Toowoomba Road Runners, a group Mr Guard helped establish and grow, have built a memorial bench at Middle Ridge Park that will be unveiled on Sunday from 7.40am.

Current president Wendy Dighton said the values the couple had instilled in the group continued to this day.

Toowoomba couple Dr Roger and Dr Jill Guard were killed in the MH17 disaster. :Photo Contributed

“I didn’t know him, but we feel like we did because the values he had established have carried through,” she said.

“We still run the routes around Toowoomba that he created, we know all the laneways.

“Roger was never made a life member, so we’re going to posthumously award life membership to him.

“The group has grown significantly but the core values that Roger established have continued.”