Witness reveals Diana crash horror

London, Oct 17: One of the first people on the scene of the crash that killed Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed has revealed the horror of what he saw in the Paris underpass.

James Huth, a dental surgeon turned filmmaker, told the jury into inquest of the pair"s death that he heard the sound of screeching tyres and two distinct smashing sounds while he was sitting in his parents" apartment on the banks of the River Seine, and was on the crash scene within two minutes.

Speaking over a video-link from Paris, Huth told the jury that he saw three people in the car and that he was unaware until he heard later news reports that the Princess had been a passenger, because she had slumped into the footwell of the rear seats.

“The airbags were out, and the driver"s [Henri Paul"s] head was inside one of them. The front passenger [Trevor Rees-Jones] was panicking, and his jaw was hanging low. I tried to calm him down in French and told him that help was coming," The Sun quoted Huth, as saying.

"I didn"t see what I learned after - that there was another person underneath, the Princess. I didn"t see that because I didn"t approach the car enough, I guess," he added.

Huth also described how he found the crashed Mercedes with its doors still closed, but photographers already taking pictures.

He said that he witnessed a paparazzo fighting with a bystander in the underpass minutes after the crash and before the emergency services arrived.

“The man was trying to catch his camera, he was screaming that he didn"t have the right to take pictures," he said.

Huth said he had stopped those trying to open the car doors not to move the occupants because his training had taught him that to move anyone with spinal injuries could kill them. It was then that he looked in the back and saw Dodi"s body.

“I approached the car and saw the legs of a man, I didn"t know who those persons were, I didn"t know until at the end anyway. I saw the broken leg, that I remember clearly, of a man in blue jeans I guess, with a double fracture under the knee and a boot like a cowboy"s," he said.

He further said that he ran out of the tunnel and borrowed a phone from the driver of a Jaguar to call the emergency services.

ANI>