Diana's Last Words: 'Oh My God'
French firefighter says that he heard princess speak at the crash site.
Oct. 26, 2007 — -- Princess Diana may have been alive moments after the accident in Paris that eventually took her life 10 years ago.
French firefighter Damian Dalby, one of the first people to arrive on the crash scene in Paris, testified Wednesday at the inquest into Diana's death that she uttered her last words, "Oh my God," as paparazzi closed in on the scene and snapped photos of the wreckage.
For the first time in the inquest, the jury was told that Diana was trying to speak as she lay injured in the wreckage of the car.
Dalby said that at the back of the car, the right-hand side door was open.
As Dalby rushed over to the door, in her final moments he heard Diana say, "Oh my God."
"It will make the jury more sympathetic to Diana, because a lot of people have been in a near miss, when everything happens quickly and they think they are going to die. Panic sets in and then. 'oh my God,'" royal correspondent Ingrid Seward said.
Dalby says there was already a photographer at the scene, but he did not block Dalby from trying to help Diana as she lay in the back of the limo. Moments later, the paparazzi were swarming the wreckage.
"It just doesn't sound good the way they behaved. One of them opened the door just to take photographs," Seward said.
He said he remembers another photographer shouting "she's alive," and pushing the others away, trying to stop them from taking pictures. But some of them didn't listen.
When French police tried to control the paparazzi, Dalby remembers one of them saying, "We are earning our money out of this, leave us to do our job."
Photographers began pursuing Diana and her friend Dodi Al Fayed that tragic night in August 1997. As they left the Ritz hotel, Diana could be seen trying to shield her face, getting into the car with Dodi with the paparazzi following them all the while.
Just minutes later, Diana and Fayed's journey ended when the limo hit the tunnel's 13th pillar.
Police arrested the photographers at the time of the crash on suspicion that they'd caused it, but a French investigation concluded there wasn't enough evidence to charge them.
"The focus now shifts to paparazzi," Seward said. "I think the paparazzi are going to get more blame than they have so far."
Next week, it's the inquest's turn to question them.