It's hard to believe that today would have marked the 63rd birthday of the late Princess Diana, had she not tragically been killed in a car crash 27 years ago.
And now, as the world once again commemorates her heartbreakingly premature passing, the final, chilling words that the mother-of-two uttered before slipping into the coma that would lead to her death are once again trending online.
For those unfamiliar with the cataclysmic event which shook the globe and triggered a period of mourning amongst billions of adoring fans, a then 36-year-old Diana was travelling through a tunnel in Paris back in August 1997.
The 'People's Princess' - who was previously married to now King Charles III prior to their bitter divorce - had been sitting in the backseat of her car with her rumoured boyfriend Dodi Fayed, with the pair having attended an exclusive dinner in France's capital.
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Diana's driver Henri Paul and Dodi’s bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones were also inside the car at the time, which had been travelling through the Pont de l'Alma underpass when it was chased down by a pack of press and paparazzi.
According to reports, the driver frantically lost control of the vehicle, plummeting the car into a column inside the tunnel, in turn killing himself and Dodi immediately.
Diana and Dodi's bodyguard were found severely injured and were subsequently rushed to hospital.
During the emergency journey, however, one of the French firefighters who attended the scene took note of what she said to him, unaware that these would later go down in history as the final statement Princess Diana ever gave.
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On the 20th anniversary of her death, back in 2017, French native Xavier Gourmelon spoke to Good Morning Britain about what she said to him that fateful evening.
Claiming that, upon attending the scene, no one was initially aware that Princess Diana had been one of the victims, she regained consciousness in the back of the car whilst talking to him, allegedly asking him, 'Oh my god, what's happened?'.
He said the Princess then became temporarily agitated before losing consciousness again.
"I tried to calm her down and tell her we’d look after her, and she fell into a coma again."
It was during her removal from the car, however, that Xaxier says her health rapidly deteriorated.
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"At that moment, the doctor said she was in cardiac arrest. So, we gave her CPR and after 20 seconds, she regained consciousness, and we transferred her to the ambulance."
Sadly, after medics at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris attempted to save her life, at 4.00am the following morning, that the princess died after another cardiac arrest from which surgeons could not resuscitate her.
Topics: Royal Family
Rhianna Benson