By Katherine Tinsley
2:04am PDT, Sep 4, 2025
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Before
Princess Diana died from the injuries she sustained in a 1997 car crash in Paris, she shared a moment with an EMT who tried to save her life. The EMT later shared the royal's final words…
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The Mirror reported that firefighter
Xavier Gourmelon held Princess Diana's hand as he tried to get her out of the backseat of the vehicle in which she'd crashed. At the time, he recognized her only as a "blonde woman." He says that before she went into cardiac arrest, she asked him, "My God, what's happened?" Gourmelon later told
The Sun, "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."
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"Honestly, I thought she would survive. As far as I knew when she was in the ambulance she was alive and I expected her to live," Xavier Gourmelon continued. "But I found out later she had died in hospital. It was very upsetting. I know now that there were serious internal injuries, but the whole episode is still very much in my mind."
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"The memory of that night will stay with me forever," Xavier Gourmelon said. "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."
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Histoiran Ed Owens pointed out that Princess Diana is a cultural icon and her death sent shockwaves throughout the world. "I think we need to remind ourselves that she was probably the best-known woman in the English-speaking world, aside from perhaps Queen Elizabeth II herself," Owens said, according to The Mirror.
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"And, given this massive celebrity persona that she had developed, to have that extinguished overnight, for her to die in such tragic circumstances, at such a young age, I think really came as a massive shock to many people," Ed Owens continued. Princess Diana was just 36 when she died.
