Diana’s final hours
As the world marks what would have been her 60th birthday on Thursday, we look back at the last hours in Paris that stole the life of Diana, our People’s Princess…
We all remember where we were when we were told the news – Diana, Princess of Wales, had been killed in an accident in Paris. It was 31 August 1997.
Just 36 and at the pinnacle of her beauty, her life was ended in a violent car crash in a Parisian tunnel, as she and her lover, Dodi Al Fayed, tried to avoid the paparazzi in a high-speed chase.
The couple, who were enjoying a heady Summer romance, had arrived at the Ritz in Paris, the luxury hotel owned by Dodi’s father, Mohamed Al
Fayed, the Egyptian billionaire who also owned iconic department store, Harrods.
They had been staying at the
Imperial Suite, but after midnight, Dodi told security staff that they intended to return to his apartment, which was a short distance away.
The bodyguards were unhappy with the plan, but eventually an agreement was reached that they would leave the hotel by the back entrance and travel in a Mercedes driven by Ritz security staff member, Henri Paul.
It was to be a disastrous decision, not least as it would later transpire that the driver was over the alcohol limit.
Upon leaving the hotel, they were spotted by the paparazzi, who gave pursuit. The Mercedes sped through the city, with photographers in cars and on motorbikes in hot pursuit and, after entering the Pont de l’Alma tunnel, it crashed into a pillar.
Henri Paul and Dodi Al Fayed were killed instantly. Diana and bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones clung to life inside the wreckage.
A doctor, Frederic Mailliez, who had been passing through the tunnel in the opposite direction on his way home, saw the crushed Mercedes, smoke billowing from the engine – and rushed to help.
‘She was sitting on the floor in the back and I discovered then she was a most beautiful woman and she didn’t have any [serious] injuries to her face. She was not bleeding [then] but she was almost unconscious and was having difficulty breathing.
‘So my goal was to help her breathe more easily. It was a pretty difficult situation for me. I was on my own, I had little equipment,’ he later recalled.
The doctor had no idea who Diana was, but after he was told the injured woman was English, he tried to comfort her. ‘So I began to speak English to her, saying that I was a doctor and that the ambulance was on its way and everything is going to be alright.’
Once the fire brigade arrived, a team led by chief Xavier Gourmelon removed Dodi from the car and tried to resuscitate him, to no avail.
‘Once he was out, I stayed with the female passenger,’
Gouremelon said. ‘She spoke in English and said, “Oh my God, what’s happened?” I could understand that, so I tried to calm her. I held her hand. Then others took over.
Tragically, they were to be the last words the princess would ever speak.
An ambulance crew arrived and just after 1am, Diana was removed from the wreckage and transferred to an ambulance. Her heart stopped beating, but the paramedics managed to restart it and she was taken to Pitié- Salpêtrière hospital, where a surgical team were on hand to battle to save her life.
But the opinion of the first doctor to examine her was that it did not look hopeful – the internal injuries to her heart and lungs were catastrophic.
She underwent surgery but, despite the best efforts of the dedicated team, they were unable to save her and at 4am, knowing that there was nothing more they could do, Diana was pronounced dead.
France is a Catholic country and, unable to find an Anglican priest, the authorities called on a Catholic priest, Father Clochard-Bossuet, who had been summoned to the hospital. He was taken by the British ambassador and a nurse to the room in which Diana was lying, her body covered by a sheet.
‘I saw her for the first time there,’ he recalls. ‘She was completely intact, no mark or stain, or make-up. Completely natural. And she was a really beautiful woman and it seemed as if… you could almost talk to her.’
He prayed for her soul. At the same time, the news was being broken to a shocked world. First, the British ambassador, Michael Jay, contacted Queen Elizabeth’s private secretary Robin Janvrin.
The Royals had gathered for their annual Summer retreat in Balmoral and the phone began to ring in the early hours.
The Queen and Charles took the decision not to wake the sleeping princes William and Harry, then aged 15 and 12, to break the news that would shatter their young lives. But in the morning,
‘She was intact, no mark, stain or make-up’
Charles had the most terrible task to perform.
The family then headed to a Church service in Balmoral.
A shocked and traumatised Harry was said to have asked, ‘Is it true that Mummy’s dead?’
Charles flew to Paris along with Diana’s sisters, Jane and Sarah. He arrived at the hospital and half an hour later, Diana’s coffin, draped in the multicoloured Royal Standard, the personal flag of the Royal family, was placed in a hearse, and the prince’s motorcade drove to an airfield just outside the capital, where they took off for Britain.
Weeks later, amid an outpouring of public grief never seen before, Diana was laid to rest on an island at Althorp, the Spencer family seat – destined to remain forever young and beautiful.