Diana may have survived but for lost time, surgeon says

[x635 4,066]

Now, although I can't understand why they can't just leave her to rest in peace, this article highlights "the golden hour" using an interesting subject and event.

Diana may have survived but for lost time, surgeon says

Mon Nov 19, 4:18 PM ET

LONDON (AFP) - Princess Diana may have survived her fatal Paris car crash in 1997 if French medical staff had not wasted precious time, a leading British surgeon indicated at her inquest Monday.

Professor Thomas Treasure, a former president of the European Association for Cardio-thoracic Surgery, said there may have been a "window of opportunity" to get her to hospital half an hour earlier and save her.

Medics did "very substantial good" when they were first on the scene but once the princess was put in an ambulance for the drive to hospital, time began "slipping away", he told the High Court in London.

Treasure said that the princess's injuries were extremely serious but added that she might in theory have survived if the journey to the hospital had been short, if a specialist team had been on standby in advance and if a surgeon had opened up her chest from the front instead of the side.

"They had done a lot of good in that first half hour but from here, the next big amount of good that could be done required a surgeon," Treasure said.

Inquest lawyer Nicholas Hilliard asked him: "Is it your view that part of that time, the essential period, was squandered?"

He replied: "It's a hard word, isn't it, but I think opportunities were lost...when I pick through this with the benefit of hindsight (and ask) 'was this recoverable?' the answer is 'yes, it just about was.'"

The inquest has heard that Diana was freed from the wreckage of her Mercedes at 1:00 am (2300 GMT), within 35 minutes of the crash. She suffered an apparent cardiac arrest and received heart massage at the scene.

She was then put in an ambulance but it was not until 1:40 am that medics thought her condition sufficiently stable to take her to hospital.

Even then, the ambulance driver was told to go slowly so as not to destabilise her.

On the way, the ambulance had to stop for about five minutes just metres from the hospital when her blood pressure plunged to dangerously low levels.

Once she got to the hospital, doctors battled to save her but gave up at about 4:00 am.

Professor Andre Lienhart, who investigated Diana's treatment for a French probe, earlier told the inquest that she was "agitated", had "refused treatment" and pulled a drip out of her arm while being treated in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel.

Diana, her boyfriend Dodi Fayed and their chauffeur Henri Paul were all killed in the crash as they tried to flee paparazzi photographers pursuing them from the Ritz hotel in central Paris.

A French and separate British investigation both concluded that the crash was caused by Paul being over the legal alcohol limit and driving too fast.

Fayed's father, the millionaire owner of Harrods department store Mohamed al-Fayed, maintains they were killed in a British establishment plot as they did not want to see the mother to the heir to the throne marry a Muslim.

[JBE 328]

This is going to end up like the JFK conspiracy theory.

Yes the golden hour is important, I suppose you could say this was a situation where it could have made a difference. But, yes let this lady rest in peace.

Edited November 20, 2007 by JBE

[NJMedic 96]

The French EMS is very different then what you will find here in the US. They tend to march to the beat of their own drummer. Thsi isn't really news. Once the details of the accident became public ten years ago every trauma surgeon is the US said it was the French system of treating on the scene that did her in. Of course the French deny that least they be seen as the ones that killed Princess Diana.

The practice of the SAMU (Paris EMS) is to sit on the scene and stabilze patients and not rush them to the hospitals. Most French ambulances are staff with a physician and carry equipment that only a physician can use. Is might work for a medical patient but the only real way to stabilze a significant trauma patient is in surgery and that level of physician intervention does not normally happen on the ambulances.

I bet her agaitation was more hypoxia then anything else or at the very least AMS secondary to hypovolemia.

[Goose 188]

I know its not unusual for a MD to be part of an EMS team or response in Europe (I've seen it in england) but is it really advantageous to crack someone's chest in the field and then stop "meters" from the hospital b/c her pressure dropped? Seems like one a** backward system to me. While nothing will bring her back, it might actually be advantageous to French EMS to make a deal about this....maybe they would change their ways. Unlikely, interesting article regardless.

Edited November 20, 2007 by Goose

[Guest alsfirefighter]

This was discussed immediately after her death in many trauma realms. If she was in the US and had this accident she would have had a high percentage chance of survival.

Use it as a learning tool and lets not forget while she is resting in peace, I mean she is dead and in permanent retirement. It was the people of the UK that asked for this inquiry because of all the conspiracy theorist.