Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Hammond ‘so sorry’ after horror smash
Hammond sends ‘I’m not dead’ video to wife after latest car smash
RICHARD Hammond has publicly apologised to his long-suffering family after he was involved in yet another high-speed horror smash. The 47-year-old former Top Gear presenter crashed a 220mph electric supercar while driving it in Switzerland. It is thought his wife Amanda “Mindy” Etheridge has flown out to be with him. The accident-prone dad of two said in a video message entitled I’m Not Dead: “Hello. Yes, it’s true. I binned it. Again.” Hammond – nicknamed The Hamster – only survived by climbing out through a window of the wreckage moments before it burst into flames. He was airlifted to hospital and faces surgery to rebuild his knee, which already had metal bolts in it after a 2006 crash which left him in a coma. In the clip, shot by TV co-star James May, he joked about being given a “Swiss Army knee”, adding: “I want to thank all of the medical professionals who got me by air ambulance from the crash to this hospital. “I’d like to say thank you to James May, who smuggled a bottle of gin in for me... Most of all, I’d like to say sorry to my wife Mindy and my daughters Izzy and Willow for being such a colossal [idiot]”. Hammond has been married to newspaper columnist Amanda, 46, since 2002. He previously suffered brain injuries after crashing a 288mph dragster while filming for the BBC’S Top Gear and his wife was warned he could die. When Hammond woke, he did not recognise Mindy and she spent nights in his hospital bed in Leeds as he recovered. She took daughters Izzy, 16, and Willow, 13, telling the then five-year-old Izzy “something terrible had happened to daddy”. On Saturday, Hammond was driving a Rimac Concept One – a £1million electric supercar capable of accelerating from 0 to 60mph in 2.8 seconds – during filming for The Grand Tour. His car plunged 100ft down a hill, narrowly missing a house and flipped several times before landing upside down and bursting into a fireball. A 16-year-old witness, who asked not to be named, said: “The car had already caught fire when he was still in the car. Someone helped him a bit, but he crawled out of the wreck on his own. There was a bang from the burning car shortly afterwards.” The teenager, who posted footage on Youtube, added: “At first he was looked after by the spectators, but rescue workers got there quickly.” Co-stars on the Amazon show Jeremy Clarkson and James May ran to the scene believing their longtime TV friend “was dead” only to find he had crawled free. Clarkson tweeted that it was “the biggest crash I’ve ever seen” before adding Hammond was “mostly ok”. The star was expected to have a knee operation yesterday, but will be flown back to the UK for further treatment. Weeks ago, Hammond vowed to never do a death-defying stunt again. He said: “I’ve a beautiful wife and two beautiful daughters. I’m not going to risk leaving them. Not for their sake, but for mine.”
The car was already on fire when he was still in it. He crawled out UNNAMED WITNESS TEEN WHO SAW CRASH