When French rescue workers reached Diana she was still conscious but now critics charge the French EMTs blew their chance to save the beloved Brit.
Princess Diana, 36, and her companion film exec Dodi al-Fayed were racing to escape paps in a Mercedes 600 at 85 MPH when it smashed head-on into a concrete pillar in Place D’Alma underpass, "crumbling like an accordion."
Both were killed as well as the driver who was later found to be driving under the influence.
The Paris accident, which traumatized the world 12 years ago today, ended the short, controversial life of the Princess of Wales.
Now critics charge that the French system of first response rescue may have actually killed Diana.
Diana was STILL conscious, uttering, "My God" and "Leave me alone" to the swarming paps as EMTs arrived. Suffering from internal injuries, Diana didn’t arrive at the hospital until a 110 minutes later as her last last tragic hours were spent in cardiac arrest as she bled to death in a mobile medical parked a few hundred yards from Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital.
The emergency team had followed French tradition of treating an accident victim on the scene as opposed to treatment en route to the hospital.
The US EMT system known as "scoop and run" would’ve had Diana to the hospital within ten minutes and she might have been saved.
The French, alas, were entrenched in their "stay and play" doctrine where docs stabilize an accident trauma case before transport.
In Princess Diana’s case, it was more likely a case of Stay and Die.
