'I got Di's kidney'

2005-05-22 20:44

London - The Mail on Sunday reports that a kidney of Diana, Princess of Wales, was transplanted to a French woman - two days after the princess died in a Paris car crash in 1997.

Francoise Gaellar, a secretary at a French primary school, claims that on September 2 1997, a kidney transplant saved her life and that the donor was the Princess of Wales.

Her claims could become a major headache for the authorities, who have been secretive about what exactly happened to Diana in the first few hours following the crash.

Gaellar says that she was informed on the morning of September 2 that a donor kidney has been found. She was taken immediately by ambulance to the Rangueil University Hospital in Toulouse.

"On the way there a paramedic joked with me about the kidney coming from Princess Diana. He said I was going to receive Royal blood," Gaellar told The Mail on Sunday.

"His words did make me think, though. I, like many others, was affected by Diana's death. She was a person I admired and at the time she was very much on my mind. I also think the timing was too much of a coincidence. Also the Princess had roughly the same build as me."

Under French law Francoise is not and never will be allowed to know the identity of the donor. At the hospital she was warned that it must remain a secret. "I just had a feeling the donor was Diana," she said.

The operation was a complete success and Francoise, who today enjoys good health, spent three weeks at the hospital recovering.

Gaellar's claims raises the question of what did happen to Diana's body as it lay in La Pitie Salpetriere Hospital in Paris in the early hours of August 31, 1997.

However, Prince Charles's office said the claim was without credibility and not worthy of a response.

- News24