Dying Diana ripped out drip
2007-11-19 20:04
London - An "agitated" Princess Diana pulled out a drip which doctors tried to insert into her arm, and shouted in English as she lay dying after her car crash, the inquest into her death heard on Monday.
The 36-year-old had to be sedated and restrained so that doctors could treat her in the wrecked car in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris, in the early hours of August 31 1997.
Jean-Marc Martino, a physician and emergency specialist, recalled Diana "shouting and saying things in English which were comprehensible yet incoherent", the court in London was told.
An assistant had to hold her arm by force to get a drip in, but she quickly pulled it out, according to Professor Andre Lienhart, who investigated her treatment for a French probe.
"That's true.... Due to the agitation, the first line, the first drip was removed," he said.
Speaking by video link from Paris, he added: "She was agitated, she refused treatment ... he decided to inject some drugs to reduce the agitation, for her to accept treatment."
Diana, her boyfriend Dodi Fayed and their chauffeur Henri Paul were all killed in the crash as they tried to flee photographers pursuing them from the Ritz hotel in central Paris.
A French and separate British investigation both concluded that the crash was caused by Paul being over the legal alcohol limit and driving too fast.
Fayed's father, the millionaire owner of Harrods department store Mohamed al-Fayed, maintains they were killed in a British establishment plot as they did not want to see the mother to the heir to the throne marry a Muslim.