Diana pregnancy test would have been 'disastrous'
Updated on 15 November 2007
The doctor who oversaw the final battle to save Diana, Princess of Wales has dismissed suggestions that he should have carried out a pregnancy test on her.
Performing an ultrasound scan would have led to "a disastrous loss of time" when surgeons were fighting to save the dying princess, said Professor Bruno Riou.
The professor, from the anaesthetics and resuscitation department at Paris's Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital, was on duty just after 2am on August 31 1997 when Diana was brought in from the scene of her car crash.
Professor Riou told her inquest he knew of only four or five cases in medical literature where patients with similar levels of multiple injuries survived.
He dismissed suggestions that staff noticed Diana was pregnant that night.
During cross-examination from Michael Mansfield QC, representing Mohammed al Fayed, the professor conceded an abdominal ultrasound test often carried out on patients with multiple injuries could be capable of detecting pregnancy.
But he told the court the test was not done because of the urgent need to treat the princess's injuries.
"The matter for me, when I receive someone suffering from multiple trauma, has got no meaning," he told the court.
"As we had determined that the bleeding came from right inside the thorax, the issue was not relevant of what was going on the abdomen."
"For any patient suffering from multiple trauma, the issue of pregnancy isn't one we consider.
"And for a patient like her, bleeding massively and having been subject to cardiac arrest, I would have considered the fact of proceeding to an ultrasound scan as a disastrous loss of time."
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