A firefighter who fought to save Princess Diana’s life minutes after the car she was in crashed in a Paris tunnel has revealed her final words.

Xavier Gourmelon said he had no idea who the "blonde woman" in the back of the car was, but didn’t believe she was in immediate danger as she was conscious and had her eyes open.

The emergency serviceman would later learn the woman was Princess Diana, and said he comforted her by holding her hand as she was taken out of the car.

He said Diana looked at him and said: "My God, what's happened?"

The Princess then went in to cardiac arrest, Xavier claims, and he was forced to massage Diana's heart before she was put into an ambulance.

Speaking to the Sun in 2017, Mr Gourmelon said: "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.

"I know now that there were serious internal injuries, but the whole episode is still very much in my mind. And the memory of that night will stay with me forever.

"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."

Mr Gourmelon claims there was no blood on the Princess at all, but did say he could see a slight injury to her right shoulder.

However, he didn't believe this injury to be life-threatening and Diana regained consciousness thanks to his team's CPR efforts.

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The ambulance arrived for the Princess at 1.25am and, 41 minutes later she had arrived at Pitié-Salpétrière hospital.

From there, Princess Diana was rushed into surgery but the team at the hospital failed to save her life.

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An inquest later revealed she had suffered serious internal injuries that wouldn't have been immediately visible to Mr Gourmelon.

Princess Diana had a ruptured blood vessel near her heart, and further severe internal lacerations.

Mr Gourmelon said he found it "very upsetting" when he discovered the Princess had passed away.

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