Diana, Princess of Wales, at the Royal Brompton Hospital where she visited Cystic Fibrosis patients on Aug. 31, 1997. (Photo by Neil Munns - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images) PARIS - The woman was crumpled on the floor of a mangled Mercedes, unconscious and struggling to breathe.
The French doctor had no idea who she was, and focused on trying to save her.Twenty-five years later, Frederic Mailliez is still marked by what happened in the Alma Tunnel in Paris on Aug.
31, 1997 — and the realization that he was one of the last people to see Princess Diana alive."I realize my name will always be attached to this tragic night," Mailliez, who was on his way home from a party when he came across the car crash, told The Associated Press. "I feel a little bit responsible for her last moments."As Britain and Diana’s admirers worldwide mark a quarter-century since her death, Mailliez recounted the aftermath of the crash.That night, Mailliez was driving into the tunnel when he spotted a smoking Mercedes nearly split in two."I walked toward the wreckage.
I opened the door, and I looked inside," he said.Guardsmen of the Prince of Wales Company of the Welsh Guards unload Diana's casket from a carriage during the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, only seven days after she was killed in an automobile accident in Paris. (Photo by Peter Turnley/Corbis What he saw: "Four people, two of them were apparently dead, no reaction, no breathing, and the two others, on the right side, were living but in severe condition.