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Updated June 20th, 2021 at 18:26 IST

Doctor gives first-ever account of how he tried 'everything' to save Princess Diana's life

A doctor, who fought to save Princess Diana’s life after her car crash, recently said that he tried “everything possible” to get her heart beating again.

Reported by: Bhavya Sukheja
Princess Diana
IMAGE: AP | Image:self
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A doctor, who fought to save Princess Diana’s life after her shocking car crash, recently said that he tried “everything possible” to get her heart beating again. Princess Diana died in a car crash resulting from a high-speed paparazzi chase. According to the Daily Mail, Dr MonSef Dahman was a young duty general surgeon at the Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital in Paris when he was called to the accident and emergency (A&E) department to treat a “young woman” in the early hours of 31 August 1997. 

While speaking to the media outlet, Dahman said that he was just resting in the duty room when he got a call from Bruno Riou, the senior duty anaesthetic, telling him to go to the emergency room. He said that at first he was just told that there had been a serious accident involving a “young woman”. The doctor explained that the organisation of the Pitie-Salpetriere hospital was very hierarchical, so when he got a call from a high-level colleague, he knew the case was particularly serious. 

Further, Dahman, who was just 33 at the time, said that he realised the true seriousness of thing when he arrived at A&E moments later. He said that Riou was in the room and personally taking care of the woman on the stretcher, which was a “sign of the special importance”. He was then informed that the young woman was Diana, Princess of Wales. 

Dahman declined to describe the details of Diana’s treatment, however, he revealed Diana was suffering “very serious internal bleeding”. He also said that the Princess underwent a procedure to help remove excess fluid from her chest cavity as well as blood transfusions. But Dahman added that her heart couldn’t function properly because it was lacking blood. 

Doctors tried ‘awful lot’ to save Diana 

As per reports, the surgery revealed that Diana had suffered a significant tear in her pericardium, which protects the heart. Further surgical exploration also discovered that the Princess had a tear in her upper left pulmonary vein at the point of contact with the heart. Dahman said that the medical team tried electric shocks and cardiac massage, however, Diana’s heart had stopped before any surgical exploration could take place. 

The Princess was also administered adrenaline. But the Dahman said that the treating team could not get her heart beating again even after trying to resuscitate her for a full hour. “We fought hard, we tried a lot, really an awful lot,” Dahman said. Diana suffered a cardiac arrest at about 2:15am and her death affected Dahman “very much”. He said that one of the reasons for speaking out now was to reiterate how the French emergency medical staff had made every possible effort to save Diana, in contrast to enduring conspiracy theories about the princess’s death. 

Image: AP

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Published June 20th, 2021 at 18:26 IST

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