A firefighter who was on the scene of the vehicle tragedy that k*lled Princess Diana 27 years ago described hearing her passing words.
Diana passed away in a vehicle crash in Paris on this day (August 31, 1997).
It’s one of history’s most famous moments, as she drove away from a hotel while being chased by paparazzi.
The car was being driven by Henri Paul, deputy head of security at the Ritz Paris, who was later discovered to be nearly four times above the legal alcohol limit.
Diana’s partner, Dodi Fayed, and bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones were also in the Mercedes-Benz S 280 Saloon.
The car was driven into the Pont de l’Alma tunnel while being followed and cra::shed, eliminating Paul and Fayed on the scene.
Diana was eventually pronounced deceased in the hospital, while Rees-Jones survived the incident despite suffering several serious injuries.
Given the horrible nature of the cra::sh, emergency services hurried to the scene, including firefighter Xavier Gourmelon, who heard Princess Diana’s passing away words.
Speaking to Good Morning Britain on the 20th anniversary of her passing, the firefighter revealed that he was present 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 claimed she was ‘agitated’ at first before losing consciousness again.
She was still in the debris of the car at that point, and when they removed her from it, she went into cardiac arrest.
He stated, “At that time, the doctor claimed she was in cardiac arrest. So we performed CPR on her, and after 20 seconds, she recovered consciousness, and we transported her to the ambulance.”
The firefighter stated that he did not spot any injuries on her body and believed she would fully recover if transferred to the hospital.
She died, however, after suffering another heart arrest in the hospital and being unable to be revived.
