Approaching in his car from the opposite direction. Dr. Frederic Mailliez stopped and ran to the spot. He saw at once that two of the passengers were dead, but that two others, including a blond woman, were perhaps still alive. Within seconds, the pursuing photographers had caught up. At the same time, police and firemen arrived, alerted by cars exiting the tunnel ahead of the Mercedes; very soon, they identified the woman passenger.

By 1:15, the bodies of Henri Paul and Dodi al-Fayed had been removed from the wreck ; later, after repeated toxicological tests, it was determined that Paul's blood contained four times the legal amount of alcohol permitted for drivers.

There was also, in his system, evidence of two prescription medications for psychological and emotional stress: these we're fluoxetine, which is the generic name for the American drug Prozac, and Tiapride, a European compound often used to calm aggressive patients being treated for alcoholism.

Diana and Rees-Jones – both of them barely alive – took longer to extricate. Jean-Pierre Chevenement, the Interior Minister, was contacted by senior police officials and sped to the Hospital de la Pitie-Salpetriere, where Diana and Rees-Jones were taken. They arrived at 2:00 that morning.

A team of surgeons and nurses set to work on Rees-Jones, who underwent the first of many operations to reset and restructure his shattered jaw and broken arm. Subsequently, he was in a coma for weeks and had little memory of anything after the car left the hotel. Diana's condition was terminal, and fading fast.

A surgical team labored over her for almost two hours. She had sustained massive chest injuries and had bled profusely, and now a vein was severed and her blood pressure dropped to a dangerous level. At first it seemed that her age and fitness might grant some hope even on light of these traumas. But then it became clear that, despite the successful repair of the torn vein, all her internal organs were gravely damaged. She suffered cardiac arrest, and her heart failed to respond to open massage. Electric shocks were unavailing.

At 4:00 that morning, August 31, 1997, Diana - Princess of Wales, was pronounced dead.