Diana Princess of Wales: Encyclopedia II - Diana Princess of Wales - Death

Diana Princess of Wales - Death

On 31 August 1997 Diana was involved in a car accident in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris, along with her friend and lover Dodi Fayed, and their driver Henri Paul. Fayed's bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones is the only person who survived the wreckage.

Diana Princess of Wales - Circumstances

Late in the evening of Saturday 30 August, Diana and Fayed departed the Hôtel Ritz in Place Vendome, Paris, and sped along the north bank of the Seine. Shortly after midnight on 31 August, their Mercedes-Benz S 280 entered the underpass below the Place de l'Alma, travelling at high speed and pursued by nine French photographers in various vehicles and a motorcycle courier.

At the entrance to the tunnel, their car struck a glancing blow to the right-hand wall. It swerved to the left of the two-lane carriageway and collided head-on with the thirteenth pillar supporting the roof, then spun to a stop.

As the casualties lay seriously injured in their wrecked car, the photographers continued to take pictures.

Dodi Fayed and Henri Paul were both declared dead at the scene of the crash. Trevor Rees-Jones was severely injured, but later recovered. Diana was freed, alive, from the wreckage, and after some delay due to attempts to stabilize her at the scene, she was taken by ambulance to Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, arriving there shortly after 2:00 a.m. [5]. Despite attempts to save her, her internal injuries were too extensive. Two hours later, at 4:00 that morning, the doctors pronounced her dead. At 5:30, her death was announced at a press conference held by a hospital doctor, Jean-Pierre Chevènement (France's Interior Minister) and Sir Michael Jay (Britain's ambassador to France).

Later that morning, Chevenement, together with Lionel Jospin, the French Prime Minister, Bernadette Chirac, the wife of the French President Jacques Chirac, and Bernard Kouchner, French Health Minister, visited the hospital room where Diana's body lay and paid their last respects. After their visits, the Anglican Archdeacon of France, Father Martin Draper, said commendatory prayers from the Book of Common Prayer.

At around 2:00 p.m. the Prince of Wales and Diana's two sisters, Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes, arrived in Paris to collect Diana's body. They left with her body 90 minutes later.

Diana Princess of Wales - Subsequent events

Initial media reports stated Diana's car had collided with the pillar at over 190 km/h (120 mph), and that the speedometer's needle had jammed at that position. It was later announced the car's actual speed on collision was about 95-110 km/h (60-70 mph), and that the speedometer had no needle as it was digital (which conflicts with the list of available equipment and features of the W140 Mercedes-Benz S-Class, which used a computer-controlled analogue speedometer, with no digital readout for speed). The car was certainly travelling much faster than the legal speed limit of 50 km/h (30 mph), and faster than was prudent for the Alma underpass. In 1999 a French investigation concluded the Mercedes had come into contact with another vehicle (a white Fiat Uno) in the tunnel. The driver of that vehicle has never come forward, and the vehicle itself has not been found.

The investigators concluded that the crash was an accident brought on by an intoxicated driver attempting to elude pursuing paparazzi at high speed.

In November 2003, Christian Martinez and Fabrice Chassery, the photographers who took photos of the casualties after the crash, and Jacques Langevin, who took photos as the couple left the Ritz Hotel, were cleared of breaching French privacy laws [6]

On 6 January 2004, seven years after her death, an inquest into the death of Diana opened in London held by Michael Burgess, the coroner of The Queen's Household.

Diana Princess of Wales - Conspiracy theories

Although the official investigation found Diana had died as a result of an accident, there are a significant number of conspiracy theories that she was assassinated.

The French investigators' conclusion that Henri Paul was drunk was made largely on the basis of an analysis of blood samples, which were stated to contain an alcohol level that (according to Jay's September 1997 report) was three times the legal limit. This initial analysis was challenged by a British pathologist hired by the Fayeds; in response, French authorities carried out a third test, this time using the medically more conclusive fluid from the sclera (white of the eye), which confirmed the level of alcohol measured by blood and also showed Paul had been taking antidepressants. [7].

The samples were also said to contain a level of carbon monoxide sufficiently high as to have prevented him from driving a car (or even from standing). Some maintain this strongly indicates the samples were tampered with. No official DNA test has been carried out on the samples, and Henri Paul's family has not been allowed to commission independent tests on them.

The families of Dodi Fayed and Henri Paul have not accepted the French investigators' findings. In the Scottish courts, Mohamed Al-Fayed applied for an order directing there be a public inquiry and is to appeal against the denial of his application. Fayed, for his part, stands by his belief that the Princess and his son were killed in an elaborate conspiracy launched by the SIS (MI6) on the orders of the "racist" Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. This was apparently based on the grounds that the Duke abhorred the idea of his grandsons potentially having Muslim or half-Arab siblings.

Other motivations which have been advanced for murder include suggestions Diana intended to convert to Islam, and that she was pregnant with Dodi's child. In January 2004, the former coroner of The Queen's Household, Dr. John Burton, said (in an interview with The Times) that he attended a post-mortem examination of the Princess's body at Fulham mortuary, where he personally examined her womb and found her not to be pregnant.

Later in 2004, US TV network CBS showed pictures of the crash scene showing an intact rear side and an intact centre section of the Mercedes, including one of a unbloodied Diana with no outward injuries, crouched on the rear floor of the vehicle with her back to the right passenger seat — the right rear car door is completely opened. The release of these pictures caused uproar in the UK, where it was widely felt that the privacy of the Princess was being infringed, and spurred another lawsuit by Mohammed Al-Fayed.

Rumours and conspiracies theories aside, it is clear that Diana, Dodi and Henri were not wearing seat belts when the car crashed. Rees-Jones, the only survivor, had his seat belt on. Also, the underpass at the Place de l'Alma is known as an accident black spot; it is on a stretch of high-speed road but only has limited visibility ahead in places; and there are square-shaped pillars in the central reservation which could lead to collisions.

Diana Princess of Wales - Funeral and public reaction

Diana's death was greeted with extraordinary public grief, and her funeral at Westminster Abbey on 6 September drew an estimated 3 million [8] mourners in London, as well as worldwide television coverage. People in India watched the funeral, even as mourning started to sweep over their country following the passing of Mother Teresa the day before.

More than one million bouquets were left at her London home, Kensington Palace, while at her family's estate of Althorp the public was asked to stop bringing flowers, as the volume of people and flowers in the surrounding roads was causing a threat to public safety.

The reaction of the Royal Family to the death of Diana caused unprecedented resentment and outcry. The Royal Family's rigid adherence to protocol was intepreted by the public as a lack of compassion: the refusal of Buckingham Palace to fly the Union Flag at half mast provoked angry headlines in newspapers. "Where is our Queen? Where is our Flag?" asked The Sun. The Queen, who returned to London from Balmoral, agreed to a television broadcast to the nation. At the urging of Downing Street, what was to be a recorded piece became a live broadcast, and the script was revised by Alastair Campbell to be more "human".

Mourners cast flowers at the funeral procession for almost the entire length of its journey before and after the service, and vehicles even stopped on the opposite carriageway of the M1 as the cars passed on the route to Althorp. Outside Westminster Abbey crowds cheered the dozens of celebrities who filed inside, including singer Sir Elton John (who performed a re-written version of his song Candle in the Wind). The service was televised live throughout the world, and loudspeakers were placed outside so the crowds could hear the proceedings. Tradition was defied when the guests applauded the speech by Diana's brother, Lord Spencer, who strongly criticised the press and indirectly criticised the Royal Family for their treatment of her [9], although Lord Spencer himself had years earlier refused Diana permission to use a cottage at Althorp as a sanctuary due to his fears about press intrusion into his family home.

In the midst of this "public outpouring of grief" many commentators and members of the public found themselves nonplussed by what they considered to be mawkish, sentimental and self-indulgent displays of insincere emotion. The writer Francis Wheen recalls: On that Sunday afternoon I was telephoned by a neighbour, a ferociously conservative columnist on the Daily Mail: “I can’t bear much more of this. Fancy a drink in the pub?” Disgust was also aroused through what was perceived by many as a hypocritical turnaround on the part of many sectors of the media, in particular the tabloid press, who had abruptly shifted from the portrayal of Diana as a promiscuous, manipulative bimbo to the depiction of Diana as a saintly martyr. When the satirical magazine Private Eye issued a mock editorial consisting of a retraction of previous negative statements made against Diana, the magazine found itself subjected to heavy criticism from the press and was temporarily removed from the shelves of WH Smith and other newsagents. Defenders of the magazine argued that the parody had been directed towards the attitude of the media, and not the death in itself; the episode was seen by many to be indicative of a pervasive self-righteous and bullying mentality.

Diana, Princess of Wales is buried at Althorp in Northamptonshire on an island in the middle of a lake called the Round Oval. A visitors' centre is open during summer months, allowing visitors to see an exhibition about her and walk around the lake [10].

During the four weeks following her funeral, the overall suicide rate in England and Wales rose by 17%, compared with the average reported for that period in the four previous years. Researchers suggest that this was caused by the "identification" effect, as the greatest increase in suicides was by people most similar to Diana: women aged 25 to 44, whose suicide rate increased by over 45% [11].

In the years after her death, interest in the life of Diana has remained high, especially in the United States of America. Numerous manufacturers of collectables continue to produce Diana merchandise. Such items have drawn strong derision from certain quarters for their alleged kitsch value. Some even suggested making Diana a saint, stirring much controversy.

As a temporary memorial, the public co-opted the Flamme de Liberté (Flame of Liberty), a monument near the Alma Tunnel, and related to the French donation of the Statue of Liberty to the United States. The messages of condolence have since been removed, and its use as a Diana memorial has discontinued, though visitors visit and still leave messages at the site in her memory. The concrete wall at the edge of the tunnel is still used as an impromptu memorial for people to write their thoughts and feelings about Diana. A permanent memorial, the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain was opened in Hyde Park in London on 6 July 2004, but it has been plagued with problems and has been declared off-limits to the public at least twice for repairs.

In 1999, a little more than a year after her death, the journalist Christopher Hitchens made a comment about her while on a cruise ship. He stated that Diana "has in common with a minefield the following: relatively easy to lay but extremely difficult, expensive, and dangerous to get rid of." When there was a backlash concerning his quip he said he thought, "it was funny."

Diana was ranked third in the (2002) Great Britons poll sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the British public. In this poll, she was ranked just above Charles Darwin (4th), who changed the course of history through his theory of natural selection, William Shakespeare (5th), regarded by many as the greatest writer in the English language, and Isaac Newton (6th), widely held to be the most influential scientist in the history of humanity.

In 2003, Marvel Comics announced it was to publish a five-part series entitled Di Another Day (a reference to the James Bond film Die Another Day) featuring a resurrected Diana, Princess of Wales as a mutant with superpowers, as part of Peter Milligan's satirical X-Statix title. Amidst considerable (and predictable) outcry, the idea was quickly dropped. Heliograph Incorporated produced a roleplaying game, Diana: Warrior Princess by Marcus L. Rowland about a fictionalised version of the twentieth century as it might be seen a thousand years from now.

After her death, the actor Kevin Costner, who had been introduced to the Princess by her former sister-in-law, Sarah, Duchess of York claimed he had been in negotiations with the divorced Princess to co-star in a sequel to the thriller film The Bodyguard, which starred Costner and Whitney Houston. Buckingham Palace dismissed Costner's claims as unfounded.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Death", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki