LEADING South African heart surgeon Christian Barnard said that Britain’s Princess Diana could have been saved if she had been rushed to hospital quicker. Barnard, who was a friend of the Princess of Wales, writes in a new book that she could have been saved if she had reached hospital within 10 minutes of the 1997 high-speed car crash in Paris, the Sunday Telegraph reports. ”My opinion is that they made a mistake not rushing her to hospital quicker because her bleeding could only be stopped by surgery,” said pioneering surgeon Barnard in his book ”50 Ways To A Healthy Heart”, which is to be published in May. ”I understand they spent up to an hour at the scene of the accident,” he said. Barnard, based in South Africa, said according to the autopsy Diana died of internal bleeding as the result of injury to the pulmonary vein. He said such an injury would not lead to rapid loss of blood. Diana’s companion Dodi Al Fayed and their driver Henri Paul also died in the crash. Bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones survived. The Telegraph quoted a French doctor, who arrived quickly on the scene as he had been travelling in the opposite direction at the time of the crash, as saying Diana was in the best shape of the four. Frederic Maillez said Diana had ”looked pretty fine…I thought this woman had a chance.” An official French inquiry found that the accident was the result of ”loss of control”, the speed of the vehicle and alcohol. – Reuters