Baby_Nutz

LONDON, England (AP) -- Princess Diana saw her lover, Dodi Fayed, dying in front of her when she opened her eyes after her car crash in Paris, according to evidence presented at an inquest into her death Wednesday.

French policeman Sebastien Dorzee, the first member of the emergency services to reach the scene, said Diana muttered, "My God," when she realized what was happening to Fayed. The patrol officer was passing the Pont de l'Alma Tunnel in Paris at 12:30 a.m., moments after the couple's Mercedes crashed, and was flagged down by passers-by.

In a series of statements to fellow police and French magistrates, which were read to the jury at the High Court in London, Dorzee told how he struggled to hold back a crowd of hostile paparazzi.

Diana died after the Mercedes slammed into a pillar in the tunnel while being pursued by the photographers on the night of Aug. 31, 1997.

The crash also killed Fayed -- the son of Mohamed Al Fayed, the owner of Harrod's department store -- and the car's driver, Henri Paul. Bodyguard Trevor Rees was seriously injured.

French and British police have concluded that Paul, the acting security chief at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, was well over the legal alcohol limit when the accident occurred.

Previous testimony has said Fayed and Paul were pronounced dead at the scene, while Diana died after emergency surgery in a hospital.

The inquest -- required by British law when someone dies unexpectedly, violently or of unknown causes -- began earlier this year. It had been delayed for 10 years because of exhaustive investigations by French and British police.

Dorzee described the photographers who chased Diana's car as "vicious and repellent" and said they repeatedly insulted him and argued with each other, one being overheard saying to another: "It's your fault."

Dorzee said he immediately recognized Diana while looking in the back of the car. Although he could see she was bleeding, he said she appeared to be in the best condition of anyone in the car.

"The princess had half-turned round in relation to her initial position and her head was between the two front seats, facing sideways and she could see her boyfriend just in front of her," the officer said.

"She moved, her eyes were open, speaking to me in a foreign language. I think that she said, 'My God,' on seeing her boyfriend dying. At the same time she was rubbing her stomach, she must have been in pain."

Dorzee said, "She turned her head toward the front of the car, saw the driver and then I think she had an even better realization of what was happening. She became agitated. A few seconds later she looked at me. Then she put her head down again and closed her eyes."

While his partner Lino Gagliardone attended to Rees, Dorzee said he tried to take Diana's pulse below her chin and speak to her as well as he could in English to reassure her.

"I maintained this position, all the while trying to get the photographers, who were going at one another and insulting me, out of the way," he said.

*** "If you love somebody, let them go. If they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never were." ***

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