An archive image of Lady Di, who died after a car accident in Paris on August 31, 1997. Photo: AP
On August 31, 1997, Dr. Frederic Mailliez was returning from a party when he stumbled upon the steaming Mercedes Benz after crashing into the Alma bridge tunnel in Paris. After opening the door he ran into an injured woman who was struggling to breatheand without knowing who he was, he rushed to assist her in an attempt to save her life.
Only a few hours later he would discover that the woman was Diana Spencer, the iconic Lady Di, mother of the future king of England and a figure adored by millions of people. Despite Mailliez’s best efforts, Diana, 36, was unable to overcome her injuries and died a few hours later at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital.
“I know it’s great, but I didn’t recognize Princess Diana,” Mailliez recalled in an interview with Associated Press25 years after that fateful night.
“I was in the back seat of the car trying to take care of her. I realized she was very beautiful, but my attention was so focused on what I had to do to save her life that I didn’t have time to think about who this woman was“Detailed Mailliez, who admitted knowing that his name will be associated with the event forever.
“I feel a little responsible for his last moments“, he confessed.
A desperate scene
In his account of the event, Mailliez recalls that when he opened the door it was clear that two of the four people had already died: the driver Henri Paul and Dodi Fayed, Diana’s companion. A man, sitting in the passenger seat, and a woman, located in the back seat, survived.
“The passenger in the front seat was screaming, breathing. He could wait a few minutes. And the passenger, the young woman, was kneeling on the floor of the Mercedes, head down. She was having trouble breathing. She needed quick assistance,” says Mailliez, who he ran to his car for his first aid kit.
“He was unconscious and thanks to the respiratory bag he recovered a little more energy, but he couldn’t say anything,” he adds. “Someone behind me told me that the victims spoke English, so I started speaking in English saying I was a doctor and called the ambulance. I tried to comfort her.”
As he worked, he noticed the photographers’ flash and cameras documenting the scene. A British investigation found that Diana’s driver Henri Paul he was drunk and drove at high speed to evade the photographers who were chasing him.
Mailliez said he had “nothing to blame” for the actions of the photographers after the accident. “They didn’t stop me from having access to the victims. I didn’t ask them for help, but they didn’t interfere with my work.”
Firefighters promptly responded and Diana was taken to a Paris hospital where she would die a few hours later.
“It was a huge shock to learn that it was Princess Diana and that she was dead,” Mailliez said. Then the doubt arose. “Did I do everything possible to save her? Did I do my job correctly?” She wondered. “I checked with my medical professors and police investigators,” she said, and they agreed that he did everything possible.
The anniversary awakens those memories again, but they also come back “every time I drive through Alma’s tunnel,” he said.
Source: AP
Source: Clarin
