By EMS1 Staff
PARIS — A French firefighter who responded to the scene of Princess Diana’s fatal car crash recalled her final words 20 years after her death.
Rolling Stone reported that when firefighter Xavier Gourmelon pulled Princess Diana out of the wrecked Mercedes, she was conscious with her eyes open.
“The car was in a mess and we just dealt with it like any road accident,” Gourmelon said. “We got straight to work to see who needed help and who was alive. Diana said to me, ‘My God, what’s happened?’”
“She was moving very slightly and I could see she was alive ... I could see she had a slight injury to her right shoulder but, other than that, there was nothing significant,” Gourmelon added. “There was no blood on her at all.”
Gourmelon said he and his crew lifted her onto a stretcher, where she suffered a cardiac arrest.
“I massaged her heart and a few seconds later she was breathing again,” he said. “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,” Gourmelon said. “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 the hospital. It was very upsetting.”
At the time, Gourmelon said he didn’t know who the princess was when he was pulling her from the wreckage. He was later informed by a paramedic after she was inside the ambulance.
“I was so shocked,” Gourmelon said. “I knew who she was, but don’t follow British royalty closely. I went to the ambulance and looked in and that’s when I recognized her.”
Gourmelon also said Diana’s bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, was insistent on reaching Princess Diana, but he was hurt as well.
“He kept asking for the princess, saying, ‘Where is she? Where is she?’” Gourmelon said. “But my team told him to keep calm and not speak. I told him that none of my men spoke English so it was better for him to keep still and not move. I told him not to worry we were looking after everyone.”
The now-retired firefighter has not spoken of the crash until now, because he was not allowed to speak publicly about his experience while working as a firefighter.