Princess Diana 25 years on: ‘She comforted me after I was buried alive’

Today marks 25 years since Princess Diana died in shocking circumstances after a road traffic collision in Paris. The sudden manner of her death caused shock across the world and a mass outpouring of grief in the UK.

Enniskillen woman Daphne Stephenson was one of countless people in Northern Ireland whose lives were touched during the various visits she made here.

In 1987 she and her late husband Alan attended the Cenotaph Remembrance Service in Enniskillen. They were only eight feet from the wall behind which an IRA bomb exploded, killing eleven and injuring over 60.

“It was very strange,” said Daphne, who was 32 at the time. “We were standing with our backs to the wall and it all happened as though in slow motion.

“It was just like a blackness coming over the top of your head. I was thrown forward and the rubble fell on top of me.

“I was completely buried alive - even my head - I had only an air pocket to breathe.”

Her late husband Alan was buried to his waist and immediately assumed his wife had been killed.

However she never lost consciousness and was soon dug out by others.

Shock set in and it was not until several hours later she began to feel the terrible pain of her injuries.

She suffered a broken pelvis, ankle, and finger as well as severe lacerations to her legs and hands.

Her injuries were so severe her own brother walked right past her when he visited her in hospital.

“The pain was indescribable. I was seriously ill for a few days. I had to lie on my back for two weeks - I couldn’t move.”

She was in the Erne Hospital for almost a month and still suffers from her injuries.

“The experience is something that will never go away. You will take it to your grave.”

However the next week Prince Charles and Princess Diana made a special trip to visit survivors and families of the deceased.

The royal couple sat down at her bedside in hospital.

“Diana was very interested, she was a lovely young woman. When she shook hands she held my hand for a good while.

“They both sat down and talked to me and both signed my bible.

“They said it was dreadful what had happened and they asked what my injuries were. They came across as genuinely interested and concerned.”

Despite the visit, Daphne still had a long and emotional battle to recover.

“But it was really nice to have them visit, it is a lovely, lovely memory. Out of all that happened it is a lovely memory that I met Princess Diana - that she was sitting beside my bed and I was talking to her.”

Daphne remembers hearing about Diana’s death in 1997. “I was completely shocked, it was just a tragedy the way it happened. I do think she was a good ambassador for the royal family.”

She finds it hard to believe it is now 25 years since Diana passed away.

“I knew she was 25 years dead but I had not thought about it in relation to the time I met her.

“What strikes me about it all now is how quickly the years pass.

“I think the royal family would have been very different if she had still been part of it.

“She would probably still have been doing the type of charity work she was so famous for, but that is the way it is. Things change for everybody.”