At that moment, Gourmelon still had no idea of her identity. It was only once she was placed in the ambulance that a colleague whispered the truth to him: he had been holding the hand of Princess Diana.

“The shock was immense,” he admitted.

A fleeting glimmer of hope

Gourmelon recalled performing CPR when Diana’s heart briefly stopped. “She started breathing again. I was relieved. I thought she was going to make it,” he said.

But at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, the world’s worst fears were realised. Doctors could not save her from the severe internal injuries she had sustained. By dawn, the global outpouring of grief had begun.

A wave of global mourning

The death of Diana sent shockwaves across the world. In London, seas of flowers and handwritten notes carpeted the gates of Kensington Palace. Her funeral, watched by an estimated 2.5 billion people, remains one of the most-watched broadcasts in history—a testament to the scale of public sorrow.

It was more than the passing of a princess. It was the loss of a woman admired for her warmth, her compassion, and her extraordinary bond with ordinary people.

A memory that endures

For Gourmelon, now retired from the fire service, that night has never faded. “I can still see her eyes, hear her voice, that sentence… It’s etched in my memory,” he reflected.

Her last words, simple yet haunting, serve as a reminder that even icons are mortal, even legends are human. And perhaps it is precisely that humanity which ensures Diana’s memory endures nearly three decades later.