Diana was just 36 when she died after a car accident in Paris on August 31, 1997, which also killed her companion Dodi Fayed and the driver of the vehicle. The car had crashed into the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in the French capital and emergency services rushed to the scene in the aftermath of the crash. One of them was firefighter Xavier Gourmelon, who, when he first saw Diana, had no idea who she was. He did not believe that the “blonde woman” in the back of the car was seriously injured because she had her eyes open and was conscious.
He was the one who held Diana’s hand and comforted her as she was taken from the car. He reassured her and told her to keep calm. Diana asked him: “My God, what happened?” Moments later, she went into cardiac arrest.
Gourmelon previously told The Sun: “I massaged her heart and a few seconds later she started breathing again. That was a relief, because you want to save lives. And I thought I had done that. Frankly, I thought she would survive. As far as I knew she was still alive in the ambulance. Then I heard later that she had died in the hospital. That was very frustrating.”
He continues: “I know there were serious internal injuries. I often think about what happened. The memory of that night will stay with me forever. I had no idea it was about Princess Diana. It was only when she was carried into the ambulance that one of the employees said it was her.”
Tonight Channel 4 broadcasts the first episode of a four-part series Investigating Diana, which deals with the two investigations into the accident: the first by the French police in 1997, the second by the British police in 2004.
It was recently announced that Prince Harry has started his own investigation into his mother’s death. His mother’s last words are exactly what still haunts him after all these years: ‘What exactly happened?’