In an incident eerily similar to her daughter's fatal accident, Princess Diana's mother Frances Shand Kydd narrowly escaped serious injury on Wednesday when her car flipped over after hitting a bridge support.
The 66-year-old was badly shaken but unhurt after the accident, in which the car skidded to a halt just metres from a steep drop into the river, on the B844 road near her home in Scotland.
"It's by the grace of God she skidded towards the bridge and not towards the river. There's a 20-foot drop down there with nothing to stop a car going into the water," said one eyewitness.
Mrs Shand Kydd was helped from her dark green Audi by fellow motorists who also called an ambulance, but she declined to go to hospital. Police who had been called to the scene administered an on-the-spot breathalyser test which proved negative.
The year before Diana's death, her mother had been banned from driving for a year after being caught driving over the legal alcohol limit. Three years later her car was discovered in a ditch on the outskirts of Oban, near to her Seil Island home, although she said that she had not driven it there.
Fears have been growing for the pensioner in the wake of the pressures imposed upon her by the trial of former royal butler Paul Burrell and a recent break-in at her home which saw thieves get away with £100,000 of her possessions.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
