Firefighter Reveals What Diana Said at Crash Scene

He speaks publicly on it for first time
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 31, 2017 10:32 AM CDT
Remembering the Princess Who Ate Beans on Toast
People crowd around the gates of Kensington Palace to pay tribute to the late Diana on Thursday.   (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

She was the "People's Princess," a fitting title considering the outpouring of love from people around the world on the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana's cardiac arrest death following a car crash in Paris. Even today, the shock of her death still lingers. How the world is remembering her Thursday:

  • The AP offers a timeline of major events in her life, while ABC News examines her legacy. In hugging a 7-year-old boy with AIDS, ABC notes, she helped erase stigma around the disease.
  • At the BBC, everyday Britons recall meeting the Princess of Wales. In one case, she reportedly divulged a fondness for "beans on toast."
  • USA Today has the full text of the "memorable" eulogy Diana's brother delivered at her funeral. It included veiled digs at the royal family and media.

  • Time has republished its special report from the week after the crash, describing the "wail of the mangled car's horn" from inside Paris' Place de l'Alma tunnel and the paparazzi who photographed the scene before police arrived.
  • The firefighter who pulled Diana out of the wreckage and resuscitated her (without knowing it was her at first) speaks publicly for the first time on her last moments. Xavier Gourmelon, who thought the princess would live after he helped her regain consciousness, noted no blood, just a minor shoulder injury. He reveals to the Sun what Diana said to him: "My God, what's happened?"
  • Autumn Brewington at the Los Angeles Times describes "the insistence with which she was stalked" and how 20 years later, "the rubbernecking continues."
  • At CNN, a University of Reading history professor tells how the royal family is still trying to recover the public respect lost through its response to Diana's death.
  • Princes William and Harry are honoring the anniversary privately. On Wednesday, however, they visited a Kensington Palace garden built as a tribute to Diana and viewed tributes left at the palace gates, per ABC.
  • Elton John, a close friend of Diana who performed at her funeral, left a tribute of his own on Instagram, recalling the day "the world lost an angel."
(More Princess Diana stories.)

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