A French firefighter who held Princess Diana’s hand in the wreckage of her Paris car crash has spoken publicly about the four words she uttered before losing consciousness.
Xavier Gourmelon, one of the first emergency responders at the Pont de l’Alma underpass in the early hours of August 31, 1997, said that the 36-year-old royal was conscious when he reached the Mercedes. The vehicle had collided with a column at an estimated 65 mph after chauffeur Henri Paul lost control while trying to evade paparazzi, killing Paul and Diana’s partner Dodi Fayed instantly.
Gourmelon said he did not recognize the “blonde woman” in the backseat as the world’s most photographed princess. He was massaging her heart and reassuring her as rescuers worked to free her from the mangled vehicle when she spoke her final words.
“My God, what’s happened?” she asked moments before going into cardiac arrest.
The firefighter recalled his immediate reaction to the scene in his interview with the British newspaper. “I massaged her heart and a few seconds later she started breathing again. It was a relief of course because, as a first responder, you want to save lives – and that’s what I thought I had done,” he said.
Gourmelon continued: “To be honest, I thought she would live. As far as I knew when she was in the ambulance she was alive and I expected her to live. But I found out later she had died in hospital. It was very upsetting.”
The revelation that Diana might have survived with different circumstances has compounded the tragedy for those who treated her. Dr. Richard Shepherd, a forensic pathologist, wrote in his book that her fatal injury was “incredibly rare” and that she could have lived “if only” she had worn a seatbelt, struck the seat ahead at a different angle or speed, or been placed in an ambulance sooner.
Diana was pronounced dead at Pitie-Salpetriere hospital in Paris, though Gourmelon only learned the identity of the woman he had tried to save after she had been loaded into the ambulance. “I had no idea then that it was Princess Diana. It was only when she had been put into the ambulance that one of the paramedics told me it was her,” he explained.
“The memory of that night will stay with me forever,” Gourmelon added, noting that learning the extent of her internal injuries did little to diminish the emotional weight of the experience.
Dodi’s bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, survived the crash but has maintained that he lost his memory of the incident due to his injuries. He was the only occupant of the Mercedes to live through the collision in the tunnel.
The crash occurred after Diana, 36, and Fayed left the Ritz Hotel in Paris with Paul at the wheel and Rees-Jones in the front passenger seat, pursued by photographers through the French capital’s streets.
News of Diana’s death prompted an unprecedented global outpouring of grief. Tens of thousands of mourners flocked to Kensington Palace to leave flowers and tributes, while her televised funeral was watched by an estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide.
Gourmelon’s account stands as one of the few firsthand testimonies from the immediate aftermath of a crash that has been scrutinized for nearly three decades, its circumstances examined by multiple investigations and endless public fascination with the woman who transformed the British monarchy.