Xavier Gourmelon, 50, who was first on the scene and was with Diana in her final moments has spoken for the first time
The hero firefighter who gave Princess Diana CPR as she lay dying has told how he thought he'd saved her life.
Xavier Gourmelon, 50, was covering the weekend shift at Malafar fire station when he was called out to a Mercedes limo that had crashed in a Paris tunnel.
Speaking for the first time since the crash, he said he had not known he was treating the famous royal.
He treated the scene like "any other" traffic accident and didn't realise the pretty blonde woman in the back was Diana.
He said her final words to him were: "My God what's happened"
Mr Gourmelon, who worked as firefighter for 22 years, said Diana did not appear to be seriously injured when he first reached her.
She had a "slight injury" to a shoulder but appeared otherwise unhurt.
"I held her hand and told her to be calm and keep still, I said I was there to help and reassured her," said Mr Gourmelon.
"She said, 'My God, what’s happened?’
"I gave her some oxygen and my team and I stayed by her side as she was taken out of the car.
"It was very quick because we didn’t have to cut any of the wreckage."
It was after Diana was removed from the wreckage that she suffered a cardiac arrest as she lay on a stretcher.
An inquest later heard she had suffered serious internal injuries including a ruptured blood vessel near her heart.
But Mr Gourmelon said after he performed heart massage and CPR, the princess appeared to revive and was breathing when she was put into an ambulance.
"To be honest I thought she would live," he added.
"As far as I knew when she was in the ambulance she was alive and I expected her to live."
It was only after the ambulance left that a paramedic told Mr Gourmelon that the patient was Princess Diana.
He said when he later found out she had died it was "very upsetting".
CRD: MIRROR.COM
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