On the tragic night of August 31, 1997, the world was shaken by the news of Princess Diana’s untimely death in a horrific car crash in Paris. She was fleeing from relentless paparazzi who were chasing her car through the city streets. The vehicle, driven at high speed by Henri Paul, the Ritz Paris Hotel’s Deputy Head of Security, careened out of control and crashed. Subsequent findings revealed that Paul’s blood alcohol level was almost four times the legal limit, contributing significantly to the tragedy.
Also in the vehicle, a Mercedes-Benz S 280 Saloon, were Diana’s partner Dodi Fayed and bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones.
The car was driven into the Pont de l’Alma tunnel while being pursued and crashed, with Paul and Fayed being pronounced dead at the scene.Diana was pronounced dead later on in hospital, while Rees-Jones survived the crash despite sustaining multiple serious injuries.
Given that a horrific crash had occurred, emergency services rushed to the scene and among them was firefighter Xavier Gourmelon, who heard Princess Diana’s final words.
Speaking to Good Morning Britain on the 20th anniversary of her death, the firefighter explained that he was there to hear her final words.He recounted: “She looked at me and said, ‘Oh my God, what’s happened? ’
“I tried to calm her down and tell her we’d look after her, and she fell into a coma again.”
Gourmelon said that when they were responding to the crash, they didn’t know who was in the car at first, and he didn’t recognise that it was Princess Diana who was speaking to him.He said that she was ‘agitated’ at first before losing consciousness again.
She was still in the wreckage of the car at that point and when they took her from the vehicle, she went into cardiac arrest.
He said: “At that moment, the doctor said she was in cardiac arrest. So, we gave her CPR and after 20 seconds, she regained consciousness, and we transferred her to the ambulance.”
The firefighter said he couldn’t see injuries on her body and thought she’d make a full recovery if she could be taken to hospital.However, she died after another cardiac arrest in the hospital which she couldn’t be resuscitated from.A French investigation into the crash placed the blame on Henri Paul, while a British inquest delivered a verdict of unlawful killing through grossly negligent driving by Paul and the paparazzi following them.
