Hamster crashes Jetcar. Richard Hammond, TopGear

[Dazza XLT]

Top Gear presenter tells of near death
Tuesday October 24, 2006

Upside down and breathing a field full of dirt, Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond was close to death.

Speaking for the first time since suffering a serious brain injury when he overturned a jet car in a high-speed crash last month, Hammond said he felt lucky to be alive.

"I was upside down inhaling a field," Hammond told Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper, in which he also writes a motoring column.

"My nose and eyes were full of earth. I'd gone ploughing on my head."

Hammond was filming for the popular BBC television motoring series when the jet-powered dragster, travelling at 288mph (463.5kph), spun off the runway at Elvington airfield, York, on September 20.

"My very last thought was, `Oh bugger, that's gone wrong. Well, we're checking out now. You've had it,'" Hammond said.

"I was aware of my brain saying, `We'll wave the flag,' and that was the point I passed out.

"Doctors use a point system. Fifteen is normal, three is a flatline. I was a three. I was that close to being dead."

The 36-year-old spent time in intensive care and is expected to make a full recovery.

He is recuperating in the care of wife Mindy, 35, and daughters Izzy, six, and Willow, three.

The only obvious signs of his ordeal are a bloodshot left eye and a chipped tooth, leading him to joke that he had no scars to show off at the pub.

"There are people who fall off their trikes at the age of four who've got better injuries than me," he said.

"I've been through hell and I've got nothing to show for it except a chipped tooth!"

But Hammond, who suffered short-term memory loss known as traumatic amnesia, also revealed a more serious side to his injuries.

He suffered excruciating pain and struggled to make sense of what had happened after he was reduced to a child-like state when he emerged from his coma.

"My mind was like an office that had been utterly ransacked," he said.

"It was a total mess and I couldn't find my way around any more.

"It was utterly terrifying - the scariest thing that's ever happened to me."

The BBC has not confirmed the return of Top Gear to television screens.

The Daily Mirror said Hammond was aware the show was in the spotlight as an investigation into the crash takes place.

"On Top Gear we live in a world where we have to deal with an element of risk," Hammond said.

"It's our job to minimise it.

"The very fact that I made it is testimony to the fact that the precautions we ordinarily take are worth taking. I'm living proof that safety works."
©AAP 2006
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=147192