A firefighter who rescued Princess Diana has spoken for the first time to the media about the accident that killed her 20 years ago.
“This is the first time I have spoken to the media. As a fireman you are part of the French military so you are forbidden to talk. Now I have left the fire service I felt it was OK,” said Xavier Gourmelon, who is 50 and served as firefighter for 20 years.
Princess Diana, who was a favourite with the paparazzi and loved world over for her graceful personality, was killed in a fatal car crash in Paris with his lover Dodi Fayed and the driver.
Gourmelon told The Sun that he rushed to the accident site and saw the princess still conscious. He proceeded to pull her out of the car, gave her a CPR, which revived her heartbeat.
“We were very close to there and it took less than three minutes to reach it. My ten-man team was in two trucks and we were first to arrive,” he said.
“The car was in a mess and we just dealt with it like any road accident. Diana said to me, My God, what’s happened?’
“The woman, who I later found out was Princess Diana, was on the floor in the back. 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. There was no blood on her at all,” he said.
Gourmelon held Diana’s hand as he tried to calm her and give her oxygen. She seemed fine for some time but stopped breathing afterwards.
“We are all trained to give first aid and I saw that she suffered a cardiac arrest and stopped breathing.
“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.
“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 former fighter says that he remembers the incident as if it was yesterday and that “the memory of that night will stay with me forever".
“Mr Fayed was in the back and in a bad condition, he had a cardiac arrest in the car and when he was taken out he was declared dead by a paramedic. The bodyguard in the front was conscious, but he was trapped and had very severe facial injuries. He kept asking for the princess, saying, ‘Where is she? Where is she’? 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,” said Gourmelon.